ESSAYS  ON  THE  POETS, 


OTHER  ENGLISH  WRITERS 


BY 


THOMAS   DE   QUINCEY. 


CO\FESSIO.\S    OF    AN    RXGLISH    OPIUM-  EATER,"    ETC.    UTC. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR,   REED,  AND   FIELDS. 

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JOHN  KEATS. 
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— 


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WALLADMOR. 
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WORDSWORTH. 
SOUTHEY. 

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THE  SARACEN'S  HEAD. 
SOCIETY  OF  THE  LAKES. 
CHARLES  LLOYD. 
WALKING  STEWART. 
EDWARD  IRVING. 
TALFOURD. 

THE  LONDON  MAGAZINE. 
JUNIUS. 
CLARE. 
CUNNINGHAM. 

ATTACK  BY  A  LONDON  JOURNAL. 
DUELLING. 


CONTENTS. 

'.  ^  ^  &U-W  Afft*" 

PAR! 

POETRY  OF   WORDSWORTH       . 

PERCY  BYSSIIE  SHELLEY  • 

JOHN   KEATS              .                '  •               *          ft  "                          ?5 

OLIVER  GOLDSMITH  •               • 

ALEXANDER  POPE                  •  .               •               •               .145 

WILLIAM  GODWIN           .  •               205 

JOHN   FOSTER            .  ....        217 

WILLIAM  HAZLITT          •  •                               •               225 

WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR  .               •               •               .242 


OX  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 


HERETOFORE,  upon  one  impulse  or  another,  I  have 
retraced  fugitive  memorials  of  several  persons  cele 
brated  in  our  own  times;  but  I  have  never  undertaken 
an  examination  of  any  man's  writings.  The  one  labor 
is,  comparatively,  without  an  effort  ;  the  other  is  both 
difficult,  and,  with  regard  to  contemporaries,  is  invidi 
ous.  In  genial  moments  the  characteristic  remem 
brances  of  men  expand  as  fluently  as  buds  travel  into 
blossoms  ;  but  criticism,  if  it  is  to  be  conscientious  and 
profound,  and  if  it  is  applied  to  an  object  so  unlimited 
as  poetry,  must  be  almost  as  unattainable  by  any  hasty 
effort  as  fine  poetry  itself.  '  Thou  hast  convinced 
me,'  says  Rasselas  to  Imlac,  '  that  it  is  impossible  to 
be  a  poet  ;  '  so  vast  had  appeared  to  be  the  array  of 
qualifications.  But,  with  the  same  ease,  Imlac  might 
have  convinced  the  prince  that  it  was  impossible  to  be 
a  critic.  And  hence  it  is,  that,  in  the  sense  of  absolute 
and  philosophic  criticism,  we  have  little  or  none  ;  for, 
before  that  can  exist,  we  must  have  a  good  psychol 
ogy  ;  whereas,  at  present,  we  have  none  at  all. 

If,  however,  it  is  more  difficult  to  write  critical 
sketches  than  sketches  of  personal  recollections,  often 
1 


2  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

it  is  much  less  connected  with  painful  scruples.  Of 
books,  resting  only  on  grounds  which,  in  sincerity,  you 
believe  to  be  true,  and  speaking  without  anger  or 
scorn,  you  can  hardly  say  the  thing  which  ought  to  be 
taken  amiss.  But  of  men  and  women  you  dare  not, 
and  must  not,  tell  all  that  chance  may  have  revealed 
to  you.  Sometimes  you  are  summoned  to  silence  by 
pity  for  that  general  human  infirmity,  which  you  also, 
the  writer,  share.  Sometimes  you  are  checked  by  the 
consideration,  that  perhaps  your  knowledge  of  the  case 
was  originally  gained  under  opportunities  allowed  by 
confidence  or  by  unsuspecting  carelessness.  Some 
times  the  disclosure  would  cause  quarrels  between 
parties  now  at  peace.  Sometimes  it  would  carry  pain, 
such  as  you  could  not  feel  justified  in  carrying,  into 
the  mind  of  him  who  was  its  object.  Sometimes, 
again,  if  right  to  be  told,  it  might  be  difficult  to  prove. 
Thus,  for  one  cause  or  another,  some  things  are  sacred, 
and  some  things  are  perilous,  amongst  any  personal 
revelations  that  else  you  might  have  it  in  your  power 
to  make.  And  seldom,  indeed,  is  your  own  silent 
retrospect  of  such  connections  altogether  happy.  4  Put 
not  your  trust  in  princes,  nor  in  the  sons  of  princes,' 
—  this  has  been  the  warning,  —  this  has  been  the 
farewell  moral,  winding  up  and  pointing  the  experience 
of  dying  statesmen.  Not  less  truly  it  might  be  said  — 
1  Put  not  your  trust  in  the  intellectual  princes  of  your 
age  : '  form  no  connections  too  close  with  any  who 
live  only  in  the  atmosphere  of  admiration  and  praise. 
The  love  or  the  friendship  of  such  people  rarely  con 
tracts  itself  into  the  narrow  circle  of  individuals.  You, 
if  you  are  brilliant  like  themselves,  they  will  hate  ; 


ON  WORDSWORTHS  POETRY. 


you,  if  you  arc  dull,  they  will 
fore,  on  the  splendor  of  such  idols  as  a  passing 
stranger.  Look  for  a  moment  as  one  sharing  in  the 
idolatry  ;  but  pass  on  before  the  splendor  has  been 
sullied  by  human  frailty,  or  before  your  own  generous 
homage  has  been  confounded  with  offerings  of  weeds. 
Safer,  then,  it  is  to  scrutinize  the  works  of  eminent 
poets,  than  long  to  connect  yourself  with  themselves, 
or  to  revive  your  remembrances  of  them,  in  any 
personal  record.  Now,  amongst  all  works  that  have 
illustrated  our  own  age,  none  can  more  deserve  an 
earnest  notice  than  'those  of  the  Laureate  ;  and  on 
some  grounds,  peculiar  to  themselves,  none  so  much. 
Their  merit  in  fact  is  not  only  supreme  but  unique  ; 
not  only  supreme  in  their  general  class,  but  unique  as 
in  a  class  of  their  own.  And  there  is  a  challenge  of 
a  separate  nature  to  the  curiosity  of  the  readers,  in  the 
remarkable  contrast  between  the  first  stage  of  Words 
worth's  acceptation  with  the  public  and  that  which  he 
enjoys  at  present.  One  original  obstacle  to  the  favor 
able  impression  of  the  Wordsworthian  poetry,  and  an 
obstacle  purely  self-created,  was  his  theory  of  poetic 
diction.  The  diction  itself,  without  the  theory,  was  of 
!'•«  consequence  ;  for  the  mass  of  readers  would  have 
been  too  blind  or  too  careless  to  notice  it.  But  the 
preface  to  the  second  edition  of  his  Poems,  (2  vols. 
1799-1800,)  compelled  them  to  notice  it.  Nothing 
more  injudicious  was  ever  done  by  man.  An  unpop 
ular  truth  would,  at  any  rate,  have  been  a  bad  inaugu 
ration,  for  what,  on  other  accounts,  the  author  had 
announced  as  '  an  experiment.'  His  poetry  was 
already  an  experiment  as  regarded  the  quality  of  the 


subjects  selected,  and  as  regarded  the  mode  of  treat 
ing  them.  That  was  surely  trial  enough  for  the 
reader's  untrained  sensibilities,  without  the  unpopular 
truth  besides,  as  to  the  diction.  But,  in  the  mean  time, 
this  truth,  besides  being  unpopular,  was  also,  in  part, 
false  :  it  was  true,  and  it  was  not  true.  And  it  was 
not  true  in  a  double  way.  Stating  broadly,  and  allow 
ing  it  to  be  taken  for  his  meaning,  that  the  diction  of 
ordinary  life,  in  his  own  words,  '  the  very  language  of 
man,'  was  the  proper  diction  for  poetry,  the  writer 
meant  no  such  thing  ;  for  only  a  part  of  this  diction, 
according  to  his  own  subsequent  restriction,  was 
available  for  such  a  use.  And,  secondly,  as  his 
own  subsequent  practice  showed,  even  this  part  was 
available  only  for  peculiar  classes  of  poetry.  In  his 
own  exquisite  'Laodamia,'  in  his  'Sonnets,'  in  his 
4  Excursion,'  few  are  his  obligations  to  the  idiomatic 
language  of  life,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  books, 
or  of  prescriptive  usage.  Coleridge  remarked,  justly, 
that  '  The  Excursion '  bristles  beyond  most  poems 
with  what  are  called  '  dictionary '  words ;  that  is, 
polysyllabic  words  of  Latin  or  Greek  origin.  And 
so  it  must  ever  be,  in  meditative  poetry  upon  solemn 
philosophic  themes.  The  gamut  of  ideas  needs  a 
corresponding  gamut  of  expressions  ;  the  scale  of  the 
thinking,  which  ranges  through  every  key,  exacts,  for 
the  artist,  an  unlimited  command  over  the  entire  scale 
of  the  instrument  which  he  employs.  Never,  in  fact, 
was  there  a  more  erroneous  direction  than  that  given 
by  a  modern  rector  of  the  Glasgow  University  to  the 
students,  —  viz.  that  they  should  cultivate  the  Saxon 
part  of  our  language,  at  the  cost  of  the  Latin  part. 


ON    WORDSWORTH  S    POETRY.  5 

Nonsense.  Both  are  indispensable  ;  and,  speaking 
generally,  without  stopping  to  distinguish  as  to  sub 
jects,  both  are  equally  indispensable.  Pathos,  in 
situations  which  are  homely,  or  at  all  connected  with 
domestic  affections,  naturally  moves  by  Saxon  words. 
Lyrical  emotion  of  every  kind,  which,  (to  merit  the 
name  of  lyrical,)  must  be  in  the  state  of  flux  and 
reflux,  or,  generally,  of  agitation,  also  requires  the 
Saxon  element  of  our  language.  And  why  ?  Because 
the  Saxon  is  the  aboriginal  element ;  the  basis,  and 
not  the  superstructure  :  consequently  it  comprehends 
all  the  ideas  which  are  natural  to  the  heart  of  man 
and  to  the  elementary  situations  of  life.  And,  although 
the  Latin  often  furnishes  us  with  duplicates  of  these 
ideas,  yet  the  Saxon,  or  monosyllabic  part,  has  the 
advantage  of  precedency  in  our  use  and  knowledge  ; 
for  it  is  the  language  of  the  nursery,  whether  for 
rich  or  poor,  in  which  great  philological  academy 
no  toleration  is  given  to  words  in  <•  osity'1  or  iation.) 
There  is,  therefore,  a  great  advantage,  as  regards  the 
consecration  to  our  feelings,  settled,  by  usage  and 
custom,  upon  the  Saxon  strands,  in  the  mixed  yarn  of 
our  native  tongue.  And,  universally,  this  may  be 
remarked  —  that,  wherever  the  passion  of  a  poem  is 
of  that  sort  which  uses,  presumes,  or  postulates  the 
ideas,  without  seeking  to  extend  them,  Saxon  will  be 
the  'cocoon,'  (to  speak  by  the  language  applied  to 
silk-worms,)  which  the  poem  spins  for  itself*  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  where  the  motion  of  the  feeling  is 
by  and  through  the  ideas,  where,  (as  in  religious  or 
meditative  poetry  —  Young's,  for  instance,  or  Covv- 
per's,)  the  pathos  creeps  and  kindles  underneath  the 


i 


6  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

very  tissues  of  the  thinking,  there  the  Latin  will  pre 
dominate  ;  and  so  much  so  that,  whilst  the  flesh,  the 
blood  and  the  muscle,  will  be  often  almost  exclusively 
Latin,  the  articulations  only,  or  hinges  of  connection, 
will  be  anglo-Saxon. 

But  a  blunder,  more  perhaps  from  thoughtlessness 
and  careless  reading,  than  from  malice  on  the  part  of 
the  professional  critics,  ought  to  have  roused  Words 
worth  into  a  firmer  feeling  of  the  entire  question. 
These  critics  have  fancied  that,  in  Wordsworth's  esti 
mate,  whatsoever  was  plebeian  was  also  poetically  just 
in  diction  ;  not  as  though  the  impassioned  phrase  were 
sometimes  the  vernacular  phrase,  but  as  though  the 
vernacular  phrase  were  universally  the  impassioned. 
They  naturally  went  on  to  suggest,  as  a  corollary, 
which  Wordsworth  could  not  refuse,  that  Drydcn  and 
Pope  must  be  translated  into  the  flash  diction  of  prisons 
and  the  slang  of  streets,  before  they  could  be  regarded 
as  poetically  costumed.  Now,  so  far  as  these  critics 
were  concerned,  the  answer  would  have  been  —  simply 
to  say,  that  much  in  the  poets  mentioned,  but  especially 
of  the  racy  Dryden,  actually  is  in  that  vernacular  dic 
tion  for  which  Wordsworth  contended  ;  and,  for  the 
other  part,  which  is  not,  frequently  it  does  require  the 
very  purgation,  (if  that  were  possible,)  which  the 
critics  were  presuming  to  be  so  absurd.  In  Pope,  and 
sometimes  in  Dryden,  there  is  much  of  the  unfeel 
ing  and  the  prescriptive  slang  which  Wordsworth 
denounced.  During  the  eighty  years  between  16GO 
and  1740,  grew  up  that  scrofulous  taint  in  our  diction, 
which  was  denounced  by  Wordsworth  as  technically 
*  poetic  language  ; '  and,  if  Dryden  and  Pope  were 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  7 

less  infected  than  others,  this  was  merely  because 
their  understandings  were  finer.  Much  there  is  in 
botli  poets,  as  regards  diction,  which  does  require 
correction.  And  if,  so  far,  the  critics  should  resist 
Wordsworth's  principle  of  reform,  not  he,  but  they, 
would  have  been  found  the  patrons  of  deformity.  This 
course  would  soon  have  turned  the  tables  upon  the 
critics.  For  the  poets,  or  the  class  of  poets,  whom 
they  unwfscly  selected  as  models,  susceptible  of  no 
correction,  happen  to  be  those  who  chiefly  require  it. 
But  their  foolish  selection  ought  not  to  have  inter 
cepted  or  clouded  the  question  when  put  in  another 
shape,  since  in  this  shape  it  opens  into  a  very  trouble-, 
some  dilemma.  Spenser,  Shakspearc,  the  Bible  oH 
1610,  and  Milton,  —  how.  say  you,  William  Words- \ 
worth,  —  are  these  right  and  true  as  to  diction,  or  ' 
are  they  not  ?  If  you  say  they  are,  then  what  is  it 
that  you  are  proposing  to  change  ?  What  room  -for 
a  revolution  ?  Would  you,  as  Sancho  says,  have 
1  better  bread  than  is  made  of  wheat  ?  '  But  if  you 
say,  no,  they  are  not  ;  then,  indeed,  you  open  a 
fearful  range  to  your  own  artillery,  but  in  a  war 
greater  than  you  could,  apparently,  have  contempla 
ted.  In  the  first  case,  that  is,  if  the  leading  classics 
of  the  English  literature  are,  in  quality  of  diction  and 
style,  loyal  to  the  canons  of  sound  taste,  then  you  cut 
away  the  locus  standi  for  yourself  as  a  reformer : 
the  reformation  applies  only  to  secondary  and  recent 
abuses.  In  the  second,  if  they  also  are  faulty,  you 
undertake  an  onus  of  hostility  so  vast  that  you  will  be 
found  fighting  against  the  stars. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  Wordsworth  erred,  and 


8 

caused  unnecessary  embarrassment,  equally  to  the 
attack  and  to  the  defence,  by  not  assigning  the  names 
of  the  parties  offending,  whom  he  had  specially  con 
templated.  The  bodies  of  the  criminals  should  have 
been  had  into  court.  But  much  more  he  erred  in 
another  point,  where  his  neglect  cannot  be  thought  of 
without  astonishment.  The  whole  appeal  turned  upon^ 
a  comparison  between  two  modes  of  phraseology ;  > 
each  of  these,  the  bad  and  the  good,  should  have  been 
extensively  illustrated  ;  and,  until  that  is  done,  the 
whole  dispute  is  an  aerial  subtilty,  equally  beyond  the 
grasp  of  the  best  critic  and  the  worst.  How  could  a 
man  so  much  in  earnest,  and  so  deeply  interested  in 
the  question,  commit  so  capital  an  oversight  ?  Tan- 
tamne  rem  tarn  negligenter'J  The  truth  is,  that,  at 
this  day,  after  a  lapse  of  forty-seven  years,  and  some 
discussion,  the  whole  question  moved  by  Wordsworth 
/is  still  a  res  Integra.  And  for  this  reason,  that  no 
'sufficient  specimen  has  ever  been  given  of  the  par- 
{ ticular  phraseology  which  each  party  contemplates  as 
good  or  as  bad :  no  man,  in  this  dispute,  steadily  un 
derstands  even  himself;  and,  if  he  did,  no  other  person 
understands  him  for  want  of  distinct  illustrations.  Not 
only  the  answer,  therefore,  is  still  entirely  in  arrear, 
but  even  the  question  has  not  yet  practically  explained 
itself  so  as  that  an  answer  to  it  could  be  possible. 

Passing  from  the  diction  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  to 
its  matter,  the  least  plausible  objection  ever  brought 
against  it,  was  that  of  Mr.  Hazlitt :  c  One  would  sup 
pose,'  he  said, 4  from  the  tenor  of  his  subjects,  that  on 
this  earth  there  was  neither  marrying  nor  giving  in 
marriage.'  But  as  well  might  it  be  said  of  Aristo- 


9 

phancs  :  c  One  would  suppose,  that  in  Athens  no  such 
thing  had  been  known  as  sorrow  and  weeping.'  Or 
Wordsworth  himself  might  say  reproachfully  to  some 
of  Mr.  Hazlitt's  more  favored  poets :  4  Judging  by 
your  themes,  a  man  must  believe  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  on  our  planet  as  fighting  and  kicking.' 
Wordsworth  has  written  many  memorable  poems, 
\  (for  instance,  c  On  the  Tyrolean  and  the  Spanish 
I  Insurrections  ; '  '  On  the  Retreat  from  Moscow  ; '  l  On 
*  the  Feast  of  Brougham  Castle,')  all  sympathizing 
1  powerfully  with  the  martial  spirit.  Other  poets,  fa- 
^vorites  fci  Mr.  Jtiazlitt,  have  never  struck  a  solitary 
note  from  this  Tyrtrcan  lyre  ;  and  who  blames  them  ? 
Surely,  if  every  man  finds  his  powers  limited,  every 
man  would  do  well  to  respect  this  silent  admonition 
of  nature,  by  not  travelling  out  of  his  appointed  walk, 
through  any  coxcombry  of  sporting  a  spurious  versa 
tility.  And  in  this  view,  what  Mr.  Hazlitt  made  the 
reproach  of  the  poet,  is  amongst  the  first  of  his 
praises.  But  there  is  another  reason  why  Words 
worth  could  not  meddle  with  festal  raptures  like  the^. 
glory  of  a  wedding-day.  These  raptures  are  not  only 
too  brief,  but  (which  is  worse)  they  tend  downwards : 
even  for  as  long  as  they  last,  they  do  not  move 
upon  an  ascending  scale.  And  even  that  is  not  their 
worst  fault :  they  do  not  diffuse  or  communicate  them 
selves  : (the  wretches  chiefly  interested  in  a  marriage1, 
are  so  selfish,  that  they  keep  all  the  rapture  to  them- 1 
selves.)  Mere  joy,  that  does  not  linger  and  reproduce 
itself  in  reverberations  or  mirrors,  is  not  fitted  for 
poetry.  What  would  the  sun  be  itself,  if  it  were  a 
mere  blank  orb  of  fire  that  did  not  multiply  its  splen- 


10  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

dors  through  millions  of  rays  refracted -and  reflected; 
or  if  its  glory  were  not  endlessly  caught,  splintered, 
and  thrown  back  by  atmospheric  repercussions  ? 

There  is,  besides,  a  still  subtler  reason,  (and  one 
that  ought  not  to  have  escaped  the  acuteness  of  Mr. 
Hazlitt,)  why  the  muse  of  Wordsworth  could  not 
glorify  a  wedding  festival.  Poems  no  longer  than  a 
sonnet  he  might  derive  from  such  an  impulse  :  and 
one  such  poem  of  his  there  really  is.  But  whosoever 
looks  searchingly  into  the  characteristic  genius  of 
Wordsworth,  will  see  that  he  does  not  willingly  deal 
with  a  passion  in  its  direct  aspect,  or  presenting  an 
unmodified  contour,  but  in  forms  more  complex  and 
oblique,  and  when  passing  under  the  shadow  of  some 
secondary  passion.  Joy,  for  instance,  that  wells  up 
from  constitutional  sources,  joy  that  is  ebullient  from 
youth  to  age,  and  cannot  cease  to  sparkle,  he  yet 
exhibits  in  the  person  of  Matthew,1  the  village  school 
master,  as  touched  and  ovcrgloomed  by  memories  of 
sorrow.  In  the  poem  of  '  We  are  Seven,'  which 
brings  into  day  for  the  first  time  a  profound  fact  in 
the  abysses  of  human  nature,  namely,  that  the  mind 
of  an  infant  cannot  admit  the  idea  of  death,  any  more 
than  the  fountain  of  light  can  comprehend  the  ab 
original  darkness,  [a  truth  on  which  Mr.  Ferrier  has 
since  commented  beautifully  in  his  '  Philosophy  of 
Consciousness;']  the  little  mountaineer,  who  furnishes 
the  text  for  this  lovely  strain,  she  whose  fulness  of 


1  See  the  exquisite  poems,  so  little  understood  by  the 
commonplace  'reader,  of  The  Two  April  Mornings,  and  The 
Fountain. 


11 

life  could  not  brook  the  gloomy  faith  in  a  grave,  is 
yet  (for  the  effect  upon  the  reader)  brought  into  con 
nection  with  the  reflex  shadows  of  the  grave  :  and  if 
she  herself  has  not,  the  reader  has,  the  gloom  of  that 
contemplation  obliquely  irradiated,  as  raised  in  relief 
upon  his  imagination,  even  by  her.  Death  and  its 
sunny  antipole  are  forced  into  connection.  I  remem 
ber  again  to  have  heard  a  man  complain,  that  in  a 
little  poem  having  for  its  very  subject  the  universal 
diffusion  and  the  gratuitous  diffusion  of  joy  — 

<  Pleasure  is  spread  through  the  earth, 
In  stray  gilts  to  be  clairn'd  by  whoever  shall  find,' 

a  picture  occurs  which  overpowered  him  with  melan 
choly  :  it  was  this  — 

'  In  sight  of  the  spires 
All  alive  with  the  fires 
Of  the  sun  going  down  to  his  rest, 
In  the  broad  open  eye  of  the  solitary  sky, 
They  dance,  —  there  are  three,  as  jocund  as  free,  — 
While  they  dance  on  the  calm  river's  breast.' l 

Undeniably  there  is  [and  without  ground  for  complaint 
there  is]  even  here,  where  the  spirit  of  gaiety  is  pro- 


1  Coleridge  had  a  grievous  infirmity  of  mind  as  regarded 
pain.  He  could  not  contemplate  the  shadows  of  fear,  of 
sorrow,  of  suffering,  with  any  steadiness  of  gaze.  He  was, 
in  relation  to  that  subject,  what  in  Lancashire  they  call  nesh, 
i.  e.  soft,  or  effeminate.  This  frailty  claimed  indulgence,  had 
he  not  erected  it  at  times  into  a  ground  of  superiority.  Ac 
cordingly,  I  remember  that  he  also  complained  of  this  passage 
in  Wordsworth,  and  on  the  same  ground,  as  being  too  over- 
poweringly  depressing  in  the  fourth  line,  when  modified  by 
the  other  five. 


12  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

fesscdly  invoked,  an  oblique  though  evanescent  image 
flashed  upon  us  of  a  sadness  that  lies  deep  behind 
the  laughing  figures,  and  of  a  solitude  that  is  the 
real  possessor  in  fee  of  all  things,  but  is  waiting  an 
hour  or  so  for  the  dispossession  of  the  false  dancing 
tenants. 

An  inverse  case,  as  regards  the  three  just  cited,  is 
found  in  the  poem  of  '  Hart-leap-well,'  over  which  the 
mysterious  spirit  of  the  noon-day,  Pan,  seems  to  brood. 
Out  of  suffering  is  there  evoked  the  image  of  peace. 
Out  of  the  cruel  leap,  and  the  agonizing  race  through 
thirteen  hours ;  out  of  the  anguish  in  the  perishing 
brute,  and  the  headlong  courage  of  his  final  despair, 

'  Not  unobserved  by  sympathy  divine, '  — 

out  of  the  ruined  lodge  and  the  forgotten  mansion, 
bowers  that  are  trodden  under  foot,  and  pleasure- 
houses  that  are  dust,  the  poet  calls  up  a  vision  of 
palingenesis ;  he  interposes  his  solemn  'images  of 
suffering,  of  decay,  and  ruin,  only  as  a  visionary  haze 
through  which  gleams  transpire  of  a  trembling  dawn 
far  off,  but  surely  on  the  road. 

1  The  pleasure-house  is  dust :  behind,  before, 
This  is  no  common  waste,  no  common  gloom  j 
But  Nature  in  due  course  of  time  once  more 
Shall  here  put  on  her  beauty  and  her  bloom. 

She  leaves  these  objects  to  a  slow  decay, 

That  what  we  are,  and  have  been,  may  be  known  j 

But,  at  the  coming  of  the  milder  day, 

These  monuments  shall  all  be  overgrown.' 

This  influx  of  the  joyous  into  the  sad,  and  of  the  sad 
into  the  joyous,  this  reciprocal  entanglement  of  dark- 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  13 

ness  in  light,  and  of  light  in  darkness,  offers  a  subject 
too  occult  for  popular  criticism  ;  but  merely  to  have 
suggested  it,  may  be  sufficient  to  account  for  Words 
worth  not  having  chosen  a  theme  of  pure  garish 
sunshine,  such  as  the  hurry  of  a  wedding-day,  so  long 
as  others,  more  picturesque  or  more  plastic,  were  to 
be  had.  A  wedding-day  is,  in  many  a  life,  the  sun 
niest  of  its  days.  But  unless  it  is  overcast  with  some 
event  more  tragic  than  could  be  wished,  its  uniformity 
of  blaze,  without  shade  or  relief,  makes  it  insipid  to 
the  mere  bystander.  Accordingly,  all  epithalamia 
seem  to  have  been  written  under  the  inspiration  of  a 
bank-note. 

Far  beyond  these  causes  of  repulsiveness  to  ordinary 
readers  was  the  class  of  subjects  selected,  and  the 
mode  of  treating  them.  The  earliest  line  pf  readers, 
the  van  in  point  of  time,  always  includes  a  majority  of 
the  young,  the  commonplace,  and  the  unimpassioned. 
Subsequently,  these  are  sifted  and  winnowed,  as  the 
rear  ranks  come  forward  in  succession.  But  at  first  it 
was  sure  to  ruin  any  poems,  that  the  situations  treated 
are  not  those  which  reproduce  to  the  fancy  of  readers 
their  own  hopes  and  prospects.  The  meditative  are 
interested  by  all  that  has  an  interest  for  human  nature. 
But  what  cares  a  young  lady,  dreaming  of  lovers 
kneeling  at  her  feet,  for  the  agitations  of  a  mother 
forced  into  resigning  her  child  ?  or  of  a  shepherd  at 
eighty  parting  for  ever  amongst  mountain  solitudes 
with  an  only  son  of  seventeen,  innocent  and  hopeful, 
whom  soon  afterwards  the  guilty  town  seduces  into 
ruin  irreparable  ?  Romances  and  novels  in  verse  con 
stitute  the  poetry  which  is  immediately  successful ; 


14 

and  that  is  a  poetry,  it  may  be  added,  which,  after 
one  generation,  is  unsuccessful  for  ever. 

But  this  theme  is  too  extensive.  Let  us  pass  to  the 
separate  works  of  Wordsworth  ;  and,  in  deference  to 
the  opinion  of  the  world,  let  us  begin  with  'The 
Excursion.'  This  poem,  as  regards  its  opening,  seems 
to  require  a  recast.  The  inaugurating  story  of  Mar 
garet  is  in  a  wrong  key,  and  rests  upon  a  false  basis. 
It  is  a  case  of  sorrow  from  desertion.  So  at  least  it  is 
represented.  Margaret  loses,  in  losing  her  husband, 
the  one  sole  friend  of  her  heart.  And  the  wanderer, 
who  is  the  presiding  philosopher  of  the  poem,  in 
retracing  her  story,  sees  nothing  in  the  case  but  a 
wasting  away  through  sorrow,  at  once  natural  in  its 
kind,  and  preternatural  in  its  degree. 

There  is  a  story  somewhere  told  of  a  man  who 
complained,  and  his  friends  complained,  that  his  face 
looked  almost  always  dirty.  The  man  explained  this 
strange  affection  out  of  a  mysterious  idiosyncrasy  in 
the  face  itself,  upon  which  the  atmosphere  so  acted  as 
to  force  out  stains  or  masses  of  gloomy  suffusion,  just 
as  it  does  upon  some  qualities  of  stone  in  vapory 
weather.  But,  said  his  friend,  had  you  no  advice  for 
this  strange  affection  ?  Oh  yes :  surgeons  had  pre 
scribed  :  chemistry  had  exhausted  its  secrets  upon  the 
case  :  magnetism  had  done  its  best :  electricity  had 
done  its  worst.  His  friend  mused  for  some  time,  and 
then  asked  :  '  Pray,  amongst  these  painful  experiments, 
did  it  ever  happen  to  you  to  try  one  that  I  have  read 
of,  viz.  a  basin  of  soap  and  water  ? '  And  perhaps, 
on  the  same  principle,  it  might  be  allowable  to  ask  the 
philosophic  wanderer,  who  washes  the  case  of  Mar- 


Bgrfo1 


garct  with  so  many  coats  of  metaphysicaTSTrrrrfsTT,  but 
ends  with  finding  all  unavailing,  4  Pray,  amongst  your 
other  experiments,  did  you  ever  try  the  effect  of  a 
guinea  ? '  Supposing  this,  however,  to  be  a  remedy 
beyond  his  fortitude,  at  least  he  might  have  offered  a 
little  rational  advice,  which  costs  no  more  than  civility. 
Let  us  look  steadily  at  the  case.  The  particular 
calamity  under  which  Margaret  groaned  was,  the  loss 
of  her  husband,  who  had  enlisted.  There  is  some 
thing,  even  on  the  husband's  part,  in  this  enlistment, 
to  which  the  reader  can  hardly  extend  his  compassion. 
The  man  had  not  gone  off,  it  is  true,  as  a  heartless 
deserter  of  his  family,  or  in  profligate  quest  of  plea 
sure  :  cheerfully  he  would  have  stayed  and  worked, 
had  trade  been  good  :  but,  as  it  was  no/,  he  found  it 
impossible  to  support  the  spectacle  of  domestic  suffer 
ing  :  he  takes  the  bounty  of  a  recruiting  sergeant, 
and  off  he  marches  with  his  regiment.  Nobody 
reaches  the  summit  of  heartlessness  at  once  :  and, 
accordingly,  in  this  early  stage  of  his  desertion,  we 
are  not  surprised  to  find  that  part  (but  what  part  ?)  of 
the  bounty  had  been  silently  conveyed  to  his  wife. 
So  far  we  are  barely  not  indignant :  but  as  time  wears 
on  we  become  highly  so ;  for  no  letter  does  he  ever 
send  to  his  poor  forsaken  partner,  either  of  tender 
excuse,  or  of  encouraging  prospects.  Yet,  if  he  had 
done  this,  still  we  must  condemn  him.  Millions  have 
supported  (and  supported  without  praise  or  knowledge 
of  man)  that  trial  from  which  he  so  weakly  fled. 
Even  in  this,  and  going  no  further,  he  was  a  volup 
tuary.  Millions  have  heard  and  acknowledged,  as  a 
secret  call  from  Heaven,  the  summons,  not  only  to 


16 


take  their  own  share  of  household  suffering,  as  a  mere 
sacrifice  to  the  spirit  of  manliness,  but  also  to  stand 
the  far  sterner  trial  of  witnessing  the  same  privations 
in  a  wife  and  little  childen.  To  evade  this,  to  slip  his 
neck  out  of  the  yoke,  when  God  summons  a  poor  man 
to  such  a  trial,  is  the  worst  form  of  cowardice.  And 
Margaret's  husband,  by  adding  to  this  cowardice  sub 
sequently  an  entire  neglect  of  his  family,  not  so  much 
as  intimating  the  destination  of  the  regiment,  forfeits 
his  last  hold  upon  our  lingering  sympathy.  But  with 
him,  it  will  be  said,  the  poet  has  not  connected  the 
leading  thread  of  the  interest.  Certainly  not:  though 
in  some  degree  by  a  reaction  from  Ms  character 
depends  the  respectability  of  Margaret's  grief.  And 
it  is  impossible  to  turn  away  from  his  case  entirely, 
because  from  the  act  of  the  enlistment  is  derived  the 
whole  movement  of  the  story.  Here  it  is  that  we 
must  tax  the  wandering  philosopher  with  treason. 
He  found  so  luxurious  a  pleasure  in  contemplating 
a  pathetic  phthisis  of  heart  in  the  abandoned  wife, 
that  the  one  obvious  counsel  in  her  particular  distress 
which  dotage  could  not  have  overlooked  he  sup 
presses.  And  yet  this  in  the  revolution  of  a  week 
would  have  brought  her  effectual  relief.  Surely  the 
regiment,  into  which  her  husband  had  enlisted,  bore 
some  number:  it  was  the  king's  '  dirty  half-hundred' 
—  or  the  rifle  brigade  —  or  some  corps  known  to  men 
and  the  Horse  Guards.  Instead,  therefore,  of  suffering 
poor  Margaret  to  loiter  at  a  gate,  looking  for  answers  to 
her  questions  from  vagrant  horsemen,  a  process  which 
reminds  one  of  a  sight,  sometimes  extorting  at  once 
smiles  and  deep  pity,  in  the  crowded  thoroughfares  of 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  17 

London,  namely,  a  little  child  innocently  asking  with 
'  tearful  eyes  from  strangers  for  the  mother  whom  it 
has  lost  in  that  vast  wilderness  —  the  wanderer  should 
at  once  have  inquired  for  the  station  of  that  detach 
ment  which  had  enlisted  him.  This  must  have  been 
in  the  neighborhood.  Here  he  would  have  obtained 
all  the  particulars.  That  same  night  he  would  have 
written  to  the  War-Office  ;  and  in  a  very  few  days,  an 
official  answer,  bearing  the  indorsement,  On  H.  MSs 
Service,  would  have  placed  Margaret  in  communi 
cation  with  the  truant.  JTo  have  overlooked  a  point 
of  policy  so  broadly  apparent  as  this,  vitiates  and 
nullifies  the  very  basis  of  the  story.  Even  for  a 
romance  it  will  not  do  ;  far  less  for  a  philosophic 
poem  dealing  with  intense  realities.  No  such  case  of 
distress  could  have  lived  for  one  fortnight,  nor  have 
survived  a  single  interview  with  the  rector,  tho  curate, 
the  parish-clerk,  with  the  schoolmaster,  the  doctor,  the 
attorney,  the  innkeeper,  or  the  exciseman. 

But,  apart  from  the  vicious  mechanism  of  the  inci 
dents,  the  story  is  even  more  objectionable  by  the 
doubtful  quality  of  the  leading  character  from  which 
it  derives  its  pathos.  Had  any  one  of  us  readers  held 
the  office  of  coroner  in  her  neighborhood,  he  would 
have  found  it  his  duty  to  hold  an  inquest  upon  the 
body  of  her  infant.  This  child,  as  every  reader  could 
depose,  (now  when  the  details  have  been  published  by 
tKe  poet,)  died  of  neglect;  not  through  direct  cruelty, 
but  through  criminal  self-indulgence.  Self-indulgence 
in  what?  Not  in  liquor,  yet  not  altogether  in  fretting. 
Sloth,  and  the  habit  of  gadding  abroad,  were  most  in 
fault.  The  wanderer  himself  might  have  been  called 


18  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

as  a  witness  for  the  crown,  to  prove  that  the  infant  was 
left  to  sleep  in  solitude  for  hours :  the  key  even  was 
taken  away,  as  if  to  intercept  the  possibility  (except 
through  burglary)  of  those  tender  attentions  from  some 
casual  stranger,  which  the  unfeeling  mother  had  with 
drawn.  The  child  absolutely  awoke  whilst  the  philos 
opher  was  listening  at  the  door.  It  cried  ;  hut  finally 
hushed  itself  to  sleep.  That  looks  like  a  case  of  Dal- 
by's  carminative.  But  this  crisis  could  not  have  been 
relied  on  :  tragical  catastrophes  arise  from  neglected 
crying ;  ruptures  in  the  first  place,  a  very  common 
result  in  infants  ;  rolling  out  of  bed,  followed  by  dis 
location  of  the  neck ;  fits,  and  other  short  cuts  to 
death.  It  is  hardly  any  praise  to  Margaret  that  she 
carried  the  child  to  that  consummation  by  a  more  lin 
gering  road. 

This  first  tale,  therefore,  must  and  will,  if  Mr. 
Wordsworth  retains  energy  for  such  recasts  of  a  labo 
rious  work,  be  cut  away  from  its  connection  with  '  The 
Excursion.'  This  is  the  more  to  be  expected  from  a 
poet  aware  of  his  own  importance  and  anxious  for  the 
perfection  of  his  works,  because  nothing  in  the  follow 
ing  books  depends  upon  this  narrative.  No  timbers 
or  main  beams  need  to  be  sawed  away ;  it  is  but  a 
bolt  that  is  to  be  slipped,  a  rivet  to  be  unscrewed. 
And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  connection  is  slight, 
the  injury  is  great :  for  we  all  complain  heavily  of 
entering  a  temple  dedicated  to  new  combinations  of 
truth  through  a  vestibule  of  falsehood.  And  the  false 
hood  is  double  ;  falsehood  in  the  adjustment  of  the 
details,  (however  separately  possible,)  falsehood  in  the 
character  which,  wearing  the  mask  of  profound  sen- 


19 

timcnt,  does   apparently   repose    upon   dyspcpsy  and 
sloth. 

Far  different  in  value  and  in  principle  of  composi 
tion  is  the  next  tale  in  '  The  Excursion.'  This  occu 
pies  the  fourth  book,  and  is  the  impassioned  record 
from  the  infidel  solitary  of  those  heart-shaking  chap 
ters  in  his  own  life  which  had  made  him  what  the 
reader  finds  him.  Once  he  had  not  been  a  solitary ; 
once  he  had  not  been  an  infidel :  now  he  is  both.  He 
lives  in  a  little  urn-like  valley  (a  closet-recess  from 
Little  Langdale  by  the  description)  amongst  the  homely 
household  of  a  yeoman  :  he  is  become  a  bitter  cynic  ; 
and  iiotpgainst  man  alone,  or  society  alone,  but  against 
the  laws  of  hope  or  fear  upon  which  both  repose.  If 
he  endures  the  society  with  which  he  is  now  connected, 
it  is  because,  being  dull,  that  society  is  of  few  words ; 
it  is  because,  being  tied  to  hard  labor,  that  society  goes 
early  to  bed,  and  packs  up  its  dulness  at  eight,  P.  M. 
in  blankets ;  it  is  because,  under  the  acute  inflictions 
of  Sunday,  or  the  chronic  inflictions  of  the  Christmas 
holidays,  that  dull  society  is  easily  laid  into  a  magnetic 
sleep  by  three  passes  of  metaphysical  philosophy. 
The  narrative  of  this  misanthrope  is  grand  and  impas 
sioned  ;  not  creeping  by  details  and  minute  touches, 
but  rolling  through  capital  events,  and  uttering  its 
pathos  through  great  representative  abstractions.  No 
thing  can  be  finer  than  when,  upon  the  desolation  of 
his  household,  upon  the  utter  emptying  of  his  domestic 
chambers  by  the  successive  deaths  of  children  and 
youthful  wife,  just  at  that  moment  the  mighty  phantom 
of  the  French  Revolution  rises  solemnly  above  the 
horizon ;  even  then  new  earth  and  new  heavens  are 


20 

promised  to  human  nature ;  and  suddenly  the  solitary 
man,  translated  by  the  frenzy  of  human  grief  into  the 
frenzy  of  supernatural  hopes,  adopts  these  radiant 
visions  for  the  darlings  whom  he  has  lost  — 

'Society  becomes  his  glittering  bride. 
And  airy  hopes  his  children.' 

Yet  it  is  a  misfortune  in  the  fate  of  this  fine  tragic 
movement,  rather  than  its  structure,  that  it  tends  to 
collapse  :  the  latter  strains,  colored  deepjy  by  disap 
pointment,  do  not  correspond  with  the  grandeur  of  the 
first.  And  the  hero  of  the  record  becomes  even  more 
painfully  a  contrast  to  himself  than  the  tenor  of  the 
incidents  to  their  earlier  tenor.  Sneering  and  queru 
lous  comments  upon  so  broad  a  field  as  human  folly, 
make  poor  compensation  for  the  magnificence  of  youth 
ful  enthusiasm.  But  may  not  this  defect  be  redressed 
in  a  future  section  of  the  poem  ?  It  is  probable,  from 
a  hint  dropped  by  the  author,  that  one  collateral  object 
of  the  philosophical  discussions  is  —  the  reconversion 
of  the  splenetic  infidel  to  his  ancient  creed  in  some 
higher  form,  and  to  his  ancient  temper  of  benignant 
hope  :  in  which  case,  what  now  we  feel  to  be  a  cheer 
less  depression,  will  sweep  round  into  a  noble  reascent 
—  quite  on  a  level  with  the  aspirations  of  youth,  and 
differing,  not  in  degree,  but  only  in  quality  of  enthu 
siasm.  Yet,  if  this  is  the  poet's  plan,  it  seems  to  rest 
upon  a  misconception.  For  how  should  the  sneering 
sceptic,  who  has  actually  found  solace  in  Voltaire's 
4  Candide,'  be  restored  to  the  benignities  of  faith  and 
hope  by  argument  ?  It  was  not  in  this  way  that  he 
lost  his  station  amongst  Christian  believers.  No  false 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  21 

philosophy  it  had  been  which  wrecked  his  Christian 
spirit  of  hope ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  his  bankruptcy 
in  hope  which  wrecked  his  Christian  philosophy. 
Here,  therefore,  the  poet  will  certainly  find  himself 
in  an  '  almighty  fix  : '  because  any  possible  treatment, 
which  could  restore  the  solitary's  former  self,  such  as 
a  course  of  sea-bathing,  could  not  interest  the  reader ; 
and  reversely,  any  successful  treatment  through  argu 
ment  that  could  interest  the  philosophic  reader,  would 
not,  under  the  circumstances,  seem  a  plausible  restora 
tion  for  the  case. 

What  is  it  that  has  made  the  recluse  a  sceptic  ?  Is 
it  the  reading  of  bad  books  ?  In  that  case  he  may  be 
reclaimed  by  the  arguments  of  those  who  have  read 
better.  But  not  at  all.  He  has  become  the  unbeliev 
ing  cynic  that  he  is,  1st,  through  his  own  domestic 
calamities  predisposing  him  to  gloomy  views  of  human 
nature;  and,  2dly,  through  the  overclouding  of  his 
high-toned  expectations  from  the  French  Revolution, 
which  has  disposed  him,  in  a  spirit  of  revenge  for  his 
own  disappointment,  to  contemptuous  views  of  human 
nature.  Now,  surely  the  dejection  which  supports  his 
gloorn,  and  the  despondency  which  supports  his  con 
tempt,  are  not  of  a  nature  to  give  way  before  philo 
sophic  reasonings.  Make  him  happy  by  restoring 
what  he  has  lost,  and  his  genial  philosophy  will  return 
of  itself.  Make  him  triumphant  by  realizing  what  had 
seemed  to  him  the  golden  promises  of  the  French  Rev 
olution,  and  his  political  creed  will  moult  her  sickly 
feathers.  Do  this,  and  he  is  still  young  enough  for 
hope ;  but  less  than  this  restoration  of  his  morning 
visions  will  not  call  back  again  his  morning  happiness ; 


22  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

and  breaking  spears  with  him  in  logical  tournaments 
will  mend  neither  his  hopes  nor  his  temper. 

Indirectly,  besides,  it  ought  not  to  be  overlooked, 
that,  as  respects  the  French  Revolution,  the  whole 
college  of  philosophy  in  '  The  Excursion,'  who  are 
gathered  together  upon  the  case  of  the  recluse,  make 
the  same  mistake  that  he  makes.  Why  is  the  recluse 
disgusted  with  the  French  Revolution  ?  Because  it 
had  not  fulfilled  many  of  his  expectations;  and,  of 
those  which  it  had  fulfilled,  some  had  soon  been  dark 
ened  by  reverses.  But  really  this  was  childish  impa 
tience.  If  a  man  depends  for  the  exuberance  of  his 
harvest  upon  the  splendor  of  the  coming  summer,  you 
do  not  excuse  him  for  taking  prussic  acid  because  it 
rains  cats  and  dogs  through  the  first  ten  days  of  April. 
All  in  good  time,  we  say;  take  it  easy;  make  acquaint 
ance  with  May  and  June  before  you  do  anything  rash. 
The  French  Revolution  has  not,  even  yet,  [1845]  come 
into  full  action.  It  was  the  explosion  of  a  prodigious 
volcano,  which  scattered  its  lava  over  every  kingdom 
of  every  continent,  everywhere  silently  manuring 
them  for  social  struggles ;  this  lava  is  gradually  fer 
tilizing  all ;  the  revolutionary  movement  is  moving 
onwards  at  this  hour  as  inexorably  as  ever.  Listen, 
if  you  have  ears  for  such  spiritual  sounds,  to  the 
mighty  tide  even  now  slowly  coming  up  from  the  sea 
to  Milan,  to  Rome,  to  Naples,  to  Vienna.  Hearken  to 
the  gentle  undulations  already  breaking  against  the 
steps  of  that  golden  throne  which  stretches  from  St. 
Petersburg!!  to  Astrachan  ;  —  tremble  at  the  hurricanes 
which  have  long  been  mustering  about  the  pavilions  of 
the  Ottoman  Padishah.  All  these  arc  long  swells  set- 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  23 

ting  in  from  the  French  Revolution.  Even  as  regards 
France  herself,  that  which  gave  the  mortal  offence  to 
the  sympathies  of  the  solitary  was  the  Reign  of  Terror. 
But  how  thoughtless  to  measure  the  cycles  of  vast 
national  revolutions  by  metres  that  would  not  stretch 
round  an  ordinary  human  passion.  Even  to  a  frail 
sweetheart,  you  would  grant  more  indulgence  than  to 
be  off  in  a  pet  because  some  transitory  cloud  arose 
between  you.  The  Reign  of  Terror  was  a  mere  fleet 
ing  phasis.  The  Napoleon  dynasty  was  nothing  more. 
Even  that  scourge,  which  was  supposed  by  many  to 
have  mastered  the  Revolution,  has  itself  passed  away 
upon  the  wind,  —  leaving  no  wreck,  relic,  or  record 
behind,  except  precisely  those  changes  which  it  worked, 
not  as  an  enemy  to  the  Revolution,  [which  also  it  was,] 
but  as  its  servant  and  its  tool.  See,  even  whilst  we 
speak,  the  folly  of  that  cynical  sceptic  who  would  not 
allow  time  for  great  natural  processes  of  purification 
to  travel  onwards  to  their  birth,  or  wait  for  the  evolu 
tion  of  natural  results;  —  the  storm  that  shocked  him 
has  wheeled  away;  —  the  frost  and  the  hail  that  of 
fended  him  have  done  their  office  ;  —  the  rain  is  over 
and  gone ;  —  happier  days  have  descended  upon 
France ;  —  the  voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  all  her 
forests;  —  man  walks  with  his  head  erect;  —  bastiles 
are  no  more ;  —  every  cottage  is  searched  by  the 
golden  light  of  law  ;  and  the  privileges  of  conscience 
are  consecrated  for  ever. 

Here,  then,  the  poet  himself,  the  philosophic  wan 
derer,  the  learned  vicar,  are  all  equally  in  fault  with 
the  solitary  sceptic ;  for  they  all  agree  in  treating  his 
disappointment  as  sound  and  reasonable  in  itself;  but 


24 

blameable  only  in  relation  to  those  exalted  hopes  which 
he  never  ought  to  have  encouraged.  Right,  (they 
say,)  to  consider  the  French  Revolution,  now,  as  a 
failure  :  but  not  right  originally,  to  have  expected  that 
it  should  succeed.  Whereas,  in  fact,  it  has  succeeded  ; 
it  is  propagating  its  life  ;  it  is  travelling  on  to  new 
births  —  conquering,  and  yet  to  conquer. 

It  is  not  easy  to  see,  therefore,  how  the  Laureate 
can  avoid  making  some  change  in  the  constitution  of 
his  poem,  were  it  only  to  rescue  his  philosophers,  and, 
therefore,  his  own  philosophy,  from  the  imputation  of 
precipitancy  in  judgment.  They  charge  the  sceptic 
with  rash  judgment  a  parLe  ante;  and,  meantime, 
they  themselves  are  more  liable  to  that  charge  a  parte 
post.  If  he,  at  the  first,  hoped  too  much,  (which  is 
not  clear,  but  only  that  he  hoped  too  impatiently,) 
they  afterwards  recant  too  blindly.  And  this  error 
they  will  not,  themselves,  fail  to  acknowledge,  as  soon 
as'they  awaken  to  the  truth,  that  the  Revolution  did 
not  close  on  the  18th  Brumaire,  1799,  at  which  time  it 
was  only  arrested  or  suspended,  in  one  direction,  by 
military  shackles,  but  is  still  mining  under  ground, 
like  the  ghost  in  Hamlet,  through  every  quarter  of  the 
globe.1 

1  The  reader  must  not  understand  the  writer  as  uncondition 
ally  approving  of  the  French  Revolution.  It  is  his  belief  that 
the  resistance  to  the  llevolution  was,  in  many  high  quarters, 
a  sacred  duty  j  and  that  this  resistance  it  was  which  forced 
out,  from  the  llevolution  itself,  the  benefits  which  it  has  since 
diffused.  To  speak  by  the  language  of  mechanics,  the  case 
was  one  which  illustrated  the  composition  of  forces.  Neither 
the  Itevolution  singly,  nor  the  resistance  to  the  Revolution, 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  25 

In  paying  so  much  attention  to  i  The  Excursion,' 
(of  which,  in  a  more  extended  notice,  the  two  books 
entitled,  4  The  Churchyard  amongst  the  Mountains,' 
would  have  claimed  the  profoundest  attention,)  we 
yield  less  to  our  own  opinion  than  to  that  of  the  public. 
Or,  perhaps,  it  is  not  so  much  the  public  as  the  vulgar 
opinion,  governed  entirely  by  the  consideration  that 
4  The  Excursion  '  is  very  much  the  longest  poem  of 
its  author;  and,  secondly,  that  it  bears  currently  the 
title  of  a  philosophic  poem ;  on  which  account  it  is 
presumed  to  have  a  higher  dignity.  The  big  name 
and  the  big  size  are  allowed  to  settle  its  rank.  But  in 
this  there  is  much  delusion.  In  the  very  scheme  and 
movement  of  '  The  Excursion '  there  are  two  defects 
which  interfere  greatly  with  its  power  to  act  upon  the 
mind  as  a  whole,  or  with  any  effect  of  unity ;  so  that,, 
infallibly,  it  will  be  read,  by  future  generations,  in 
parts  and  fragments ;  and,  being  thus  virtually  dis 
membered  into  many  small  poems,  it  will  scarcely 
justify  men  in  allowing  it  the  rank  of  .a  long  one.  One 
of  these  defects  is  the  undulatory  character  of  the 
course  pursued  by  the  poem,  which  does  not  ascend 
uniformly,  or  even  keep  one  steady  level,  but  tres 
passes,  as  if  by  forgetfulness,  or  chance,  into  topics 
furnishing  little  inspiration,  and  not  always  closely 
connected  with  the  presiding  theme.  In  part  this 


singly,  was  calculated  to  regenerate  social  man.  But  the  two 
forces  in  union,  where  the  one  modified,  mitigated,  or  even 
neutralized  the  other,  at  times  ;  and  where,  at  times,  each 
entered  into  a  happy  combination  with  the  other,  yielded  for 
the  world  those  benefits  which,  by  its  separate  tendency,  either 
of  the  two  was  fitted  to  stifle. 


26  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

arises  from  the  accident  that  a  slight  tissue  of  narra 
tive  connects  the  different  sections ;  and  to  this  the 
movement  of  the  narrative,  the  fluctuations  of  the 
speculative  themes,  are  in  part  obedient :  the  succes 
sion  of  the  incidents  becomes  a  law  for  the  succession 
of  the  thoughts,  as  oftentimes  it  happens  that  these 
incidents  are  the  proximate  occasions  of  the  thoughts. 
Yet,  as  the  narrative  is  not  of  a  nature  to  be  moulded 
by  any  determinate  principle  of  coercing  passion,  but 
bends  easily  to  the  caprices  of  chance  and  the  mo 
ment,  unavoidably  it  stamps,  by  reaction,  a  desultory 
or  even  incoherent  character  upon  the  train  of  the 
philosophic  discussions.  You  know  not  what  is  com 
ing  next ;  and,  when  it  does  come,  you  do  not  always 
know  why  it  comes.  This  has  the  effect  of  crumbling 
the  poem  into  separate  segments,  and  causes  the  whole 
(when  looked  at  as  a  whole),  to  appear  a  rope  of  sand. 
A  second  defect  lies  in  the  colloquial  form  which  the 
poem  sometimes  assumes.  It  is  dangerous  to  conduct 
a  philosophic  discussion  by  talking.  If  the  nature  of 
the  argument  could  be  supposed  to  roll  through  logical 
quillets,  or  metaphysical  conundrums,  so  that,  on  put- 
•  ting  forward  a  problem,  the  interlocutor  could  bring 
[  matters  to  a  crisis,  by  saying,  '  Do  you  give  it  up  ?  '  — 
/  in  that  case  there  might  be  a  smart  reciprocation  of 
>L  dialogue,  of  swearing  and  denying,  giving  and  taking, 
\  butting,  rebutting,  and  '  surrebutting  ; ' x  and  this  would 

1  '  Surrebutting:  '  this  is  not,  directly,  a  term  from  Aristo 
tle's  mint,  but  indirectly  it  is  j  for  it  belongs  to  the  old  science 
of  '  special  pleading,'  which,  in  part,  is  an  offset  from  the 
Aristotelian  logic. 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  27 

confer  an  interlocutory  or  amoclccan  character  upon 
the  process  of  altercation.  But  the  topics,  and  the 
quality  of  the  arguments  being  moral,  in  which  always 
the  reconciliation  of  the  feelings  is  to  be  secured 
by  gradual  persuasion,  rather  than  the  understanding 
to  be  floored  by  a  solitary  blow,  inevitably  it  becomes 
impossible  that  anything  of  this  brilliant  conversational 
sword-play,  cut-and-thrust,  4  carte  '  and  '  tierce,'  can 
make  for  itself  an  opening.  Mere  decorum  requires 
that  the  speakers  should  be  prosy.  And  you  yourself, 
though  sometimes  disposed  to  say,  '  Do  now,  dear  old 
soul,  cut  it  short,'  are  sensible  that  he  cannot  cut  it 
short.  Disquisitions,  in  a  certain  key,  can  no  more 
turn  round  upon  a  sixpence  than  a  coach-and-six. 
They  must  have  sea-room  to  'wear'  ship,  and  to 
tack.  This  in  itself  is  often  tedious  ;  but  it  leads  to  a 
worse  tediousness  :  a  practised  eye  sees  from  afar  the 
whole  evolution  of  the  coining  argument ;  and  then, 
besides  the  pain  of  hearing  the  parties  preach,  you 
hear  them  preach  from  a  text  which  already  in  germ 
had  warned  you  of  all  the  buds  and  blossoms  which 
it  was  laboriously  to  produce.  And  this  second  blem 
ish,  unavoidable  if  the  method  of  dialogue  is  adopted, 
becomes  more  painfully  apparent  through  a  third, 
almost  inalienable  from  the  natural  constitution  ofThe 
subjects  concerned.  It  is,  that  in  cases  where  a  large 
interest  of  human  nature  is  treated,  such  as  the  posi 
tion  of  man  in  this  world,  his  duties,  his  difficulties, 
many  parts  become  necessary  as  transitional  or  con 
necting  links,  which,  per  se,  are  not  attractive,  nor  can 
by  any  art  be  made  so.  Treating  the  whole  theme  in 
extenso,  the  poet  is  driven,  by  natural  corollary,  or  by 


28  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

objection  too  obvious  to  be  evaded,  into  discussions  not 
chosen  by  his  own  taste,  but  dictated  by  the  logic  or 
the  tendencies  of  the  question,  and  by  the  impossibil 
ity  of  dismissing  with  partiality  any  one  branch  of  a 
subject  which  is  essential  to  the  integrity  of  the  specu 
lation,  simply  because  it  is  at  war  with  the  brilliancy 
of  its  development. 

Not,  therefore,  in  '  The  Excursion '  must  we  look 
for  that  reversionary  influence  which  awaits  Words 
worth  with  posterity.  It  is  the  vulgar  superstition  in 
behalf  of  big  books  and  sounding  titles  ;  it  is  the 
weakness  of  supposing  no  book  entitled  to  be  con 
sidered  a  power  in  the  literature  of  the  land,  unless 
physically  it  is  weighty,  that  must  have  prevailed  upon 
Coleridge  and  others  to  undervalue,  by  comparison 
with  the  direct  philosophic  poetry  of  Wordsworth, 
those  earlier  poems  which  are  all  short,  but  generally 
scintillating  with  gems  of  far  profounder  truth.  Let 
the  reader  understand,  however,  that  by  '  truth,'  I 
understand,  not  merely  that  truth  which  takes  the 
shape  of  a  formal  proposition,  reducible  to  4  mood ' 
and  '  figure  ; '  but  truth  which  suddenly  strengthens 
into  solemnity  an  impression  very  feebly  acknowl 
edged  previously,  or  truth  which  suddenly  unveils  a 
connection  between  objects  always  before  regarded  as 
irrelate  and  independent.  In  astronomy,  to  gain  the 
rank  of  discoverer,  it  is  not  required  that  you  should 
reveal  a  star  absolutely  new  :  find  out  with  respect  to 
an  old  star  some  new  affection  —  as,  for  instance,  that 
it  has  an  ascertainable  parallax  —  and  immediately 
you  bring  it  within  the  verge  of  a  human  interest ;  or 
of  some  old  familiar  planet,  that  its  satellites  suffer  pe- 


29 

nodical  eclipses,  and  immediately  you  bring  it  within 
the  verge  of  terrestrial  uses.  Gleams  of  steadier 
vision,  that  brighten  into  certainty  appearances  else 
doubtful,  or  that  unfold  relations  else  unsuspected,  are 
not  less  discoveries  of  truth  than  the  revelations  of  the 
telescope,  or  the  conquests  of  the  diving  bell.  It  is 
astonishing  how  large  a  harvest  of  new  truths  would 
be  reaped,  simply  through  the  accident  of  a  man's 
feeling,  or  being  made  to  feel,  more  deeply  than  other 
men.  He  sees  the  same  objects,  neither  more  nor 
fewer,  but  he  sees  them  engraved  in  lines  far  stronger 
and  more  determinate  :  and  the  difference  in  the 
strength  makes  the  whole  difference  between  con 
sciousness  and  sub-consciousness.  And  in  questions 
of  the  mere  understanding,  we  see  the  same  fact 
illustrated  :  the  author  who  rivets  notice  the  most,  is 
not  he  that  perplexes  men  by  truths  drawn  from  foun 
tains  of  absolute  novelty,  —  truths  unsunned  as  yet, 
and  obscure  from  that  cause  ;  but  he  that  awakens 
into  illuminated  consciousness  old  lineaments  of  truth 
long  slumbering  in  the  mind,  although  too  faint  to  have 
extorted  attention.  Wordsworth  has  brought  many  a 
truth  into  life  both  for  the  eye  and  for  the  understand 
ing,  which  previously  had  slumbered  indistinctly,  for 
all  men. 

For  instance,  as  respects  the  eye,  who  does  not 
acknowledge  instantaneously  the  strength  of  reality  in 
that  saying  upon  a  cataract  seen  from  a  station  two 
miles  off,  that  it  was  '  frozen  by  distance  ?  '  In  all 
nature,  there  is  not  an  object  so  essentially  at  war  with 
the  stiffening  of  frost,  as  the  headlong  and  desperate 
life  of  a  cataract ;  and  yet  notoriously  the  effect  of 


30 

distance  is  to  lock  up  this  frenzy  of  motion  into  the 
most  petrific  column  of  stillness.  This  effect  is  per 
ceived  at  once  when  pointed  out ;  but  how  few  are  the 
eyes  that  ever  would  have  perceived  it  for  themselves! 
Twilight,  again,  —  who  before  Wordsworth  ever  dis 
tinctly  noticed  its  abstracting  power  ?  —  that  power  of 
removing,  softening,  harmonizing,  by  which  a  mode 
of  obscurity  executes  for  the  eye  the  same  mysterious 
office  which  the  mind  so  often  within  its  own  shadowy 
realms  executes  for  itself.  In  the  dim  interspace  be 
tween  day  and  night,  all  disappears  from  our  earthly 
scenery,  as  if  touched  by  an  enchanter's  rod,  which  is 
either  mean  or  inharmonious,  or  unquiet,  or  expressive 
of  temporary  things.  Leaning  against  a  column  of 
rock,  looking  down  upon  a  lake  or  river,  and  at  inter 
vals  carrying  your  eyes  forward  through  a  vista  of 
mountains,  you  become  aware  that  your  sight  rests 
upon  the  very  same  spectacle,  unaltered  in  a  single 
feature,  which  once  at  the  same  hour  was  beheld  by 
the  legionary  Roman  from  his  embattled  camp,  or  by 
the  roving  Briton  in  his  '  wolf-skin  vest,'  lying  down  to 
sleep,  and  looking 

f  through  some  leafy  bower, 

Before  his  eyes  were  dlosed.' 

How  magnificent  is  the  summary  or  abstraction  of 
the  elementary  features  in  such  a  scene,  as  executed 
by  the  poet  himself,  in  illustration  of  this  abstraction 
daily  executed  by  nature,  through  her  handmaid  Twi 
light!  Listen,  reader,  to  the  closing  strain,  solemn  as 
twilight  is  solemn,  and  grand  as  the  spectacle  which  it 
describes :  — 


'  By  him  [i.  e.  the  roving  Briton] 
The  self-same  vision,  which  rue  now  behold, 
At  thy  rneek  bidding,  shadowy  Power,  brought  forth, 
These  mighty  barriers,  and  the  gulf  between  ; 
The  floods,  the  stars,  —  a  spectacle  as  old 
As  the  beginning  of  the  heavens  and  earth.' 

Another  great  field  there  is  amongst  the  pomps  of 
nature,  which,  if  Wordsworth  did  not  first  notice,  he 
certainly  has  noticed  most  circumstantially.  I  speak 
of  cloud-scenery,  or  those  pageants  of  sky-built  archi 
tecture,  which  sometimes  in  summer,  at  noon-day,  and 
in  all  seasons  about  sunset,  arrest  or  appal  the  medita 
tive  ;  c  perplexing  monarchs '  with  the  spectacle  of 
armies  manoeuvring,  or  deepening  the  solemnity  of 
evening  by  towering  edifices  that  mimic  —  but  which 
also  in  mimicking  mock  —  the  transitory  grandeurs  of 
man.  It  is  singular  that  these  gorgeous  phenomena, 
not  less  than  those  of  the  Aurora  Borealis,  have  been 
so  little  noticed  by  poets.  The  Aurora  was  naturally 
neglected  by  the  southern  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
as  not  much  seen  in  their  latitudes.1  But  the  cloud- 

1  But  then,  says  the  reader,  why  was  it  not  proportionably 
the  more  noticed  by  poets  of  the  north  ?  Certainly,  that 
question  is  fair.  And  the  answer,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
doubt,  is  this :  —  That  until  the  rise  of  Natural  Philosophy, 
in  Charles  the  Second's  reign,  there  was  no  name  for  the 
appearance ;  on  which  account,  some  writers  have  been 
absurd  enough  to  believe  that  the  Aurora  did  not  exist,  no 
ticeably,  until  about  1690.  Shakspeare,  in  his  journey  down 
to  Stratford,  (always  performed  on.  horseback.)  must  often 
have  been  belated  :  he  must  sometimes  have  seen,  he  could 
not  but  have  admired,  the  fiery  skirmishing  of  the  Aurora. 
And  yet,  for  want  of  a  word  to  fix  and  identify  the  object, 
how  could  he  introduce  it  as  an  image  or  allusion  in  his 
writings? 


.  32 

architecture  of  the  daylight  belongs  alike  to  north  and 
south.  Accordingly,  I  remember  one  notice  of  it  in 
Hesiod,  a  case  were  the  clouds  exhibited 

'  The  beauteous  semblance  of  a  flock  at  rest.' 

Another  there  is,  a  thousand  years  later,  in  Lucan : 
amongst  the  portents  which  prefigured  the  dreadful 
convulsions  destined  to  shake  the  earth  at  Pbarsalia, 
is  noticed  by  him  some  fiery  coruscation  of  arms  in 
the  heavens ;  but,  so  far  as  I  recollect,  the  appear 
ances  might  have  belonged  equally  to  the  workman 
ship  of  the  clouds  or  the  Aurora.  Up  and  down  the 
next  eight  hundred  years,  are  scattered  evanescent 
allusions  to  these  vapory  appearances  ;  in  Hamlet  and 
elsewhere,  occur  gleams  of  such  allusions ;  but  I 
remember  no  distinct  picture  of  one  before  that  in 
the  'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  of  Shakspcare,  begin 
ning, 

1  Sometimes  we  see  a  cloud  that's  dragonish.' 

Subsequently  to  Shakspeare,  these  notices,  as  of  all 
phenomena  whatsoever  that  demanded  a  familiarity 
with  nature  in  the  spirit  of  love,  became  rarer  and 
rarer.  At  length,  as  the  eighteenth  century  was  wind 
ing  up  its  accounts,  forth  stepped  William  Wordsworth, 
\  of  whom,  as  a  reader  of  all  pages  in  nature,  it  may 
be  said  that,  if  we  except  Dampier,  the  admirable 
buccaneer,  and  some  few  professional  naturalists,  he 
first  and  he  last  looked  at  natural  objects  with  the 
eye  that  neither  will  be  dazzled  from  without  nor 
cheated  by  preconceptions  from  within.  Most  men 
look  at  nature  in  the  hurry  of  a  confusion  that  dis- 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  33 

tinguishcs  nothing;  their  error  is  from  without.  Pope, 
again,  and  many  who  live  in  towns,1  make  such  blun 
ders  as  that  of  supposing  the  moon  to  tip  with  silver 
the  hills  behind  which  she  is  rising,  not  by  erroneous 
use  of  their  eyes,  (for  they  use  them  not  at  all,)  but 
by  inveterate  preconceptions.  Scarcely  has  there 
been  a  poet  with  what  could  be  called  a  learned  eye,, 
or  an  eye  extensively  learned,  before  Wordsworth. 
Much  affectation  there  has  been  of  that  sort  since  his 
rise,  and  at  all  times  much  counterfeit  enthusiasm: 
but  the  sum  of  the  matter  is  this,  that  Wordsworth 
had  his  passion  for  nature  fixed  in  his  blood  ;  —  it 
was  a  necessity,  like  that  of  the  mulberry-leaf  to  the 
silk-worm ;  and  through  his  commerce  with  nature 
did  he  live  and  breathe.  Hence  it  w'as,  viz.,  from 
the  truth  of  his  love,  that  his  knowledge  grew  ;  whilst 
most  others,  being  merely  hypocrites  in  their  love, 
have  turned  out  merely  charlatans  in  their  knowledge. 
This  chapter,  therefore,  of  sky  scenery,  may  be  said 
to  have  been  revivified  amongst  the  resources  of 
poetry  by  Wordsworth  —  rekindled,  if  not  absolutely 
kindled.  The  sublime  scene  indorsed  upon  the  dra 
peries  of  the  storm  in  '  The  Excursion,'  —  that  wit- 


1  It  was  not,  however,  that  all  poets  then  lived  in  towns  ; 
neither  had  Pope  himself  generally  lived  in  towns.  But  it  is 
perfectly  useless  lo  be  familiar  wiih  nature  unless  there  is  a 
public  trained  to  love  and  value  nature.  It  is  not  what  the 
individual  sees  that  wrill  fix  itself  as  beautiful  in  his  recollec 
tions,  but  what  he  sees  under  a  consciousness  that  others  will 
sympathize  with  his  feelings.  Under  any  other  circumstances 
familiarity  does  but  realize  the  adage,  and  '  breeds  contempt.' 
The  great  despisers  of  rural  scenery  are  rustics. 
3 


34  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

nessed  upon  the  passage  of  the  Hamilton  Hills  in 
Yorkshire,  —  the  solemn  i  sky  prospect'  from  the 
fields  of  France,  are  unrivalled  in  that  order  of  com 
position  ;  and  in  one  of  these  records  Wordsworth  has 
given  first  of  all  the  true  key-note  of  the  sentiment 
belonging  to  these  grand  pageants.  They  are,  says 
the  poet,  speaking  in  a  case  where  the  appearance 
had  occurred  towards  night, 

'Meek  nature's  evening  comment  on  the  shows 
And  all  the  fuming  vanities  of  earth.' 

Yes,  that  is  the  secret  moral  whispered  to  the  mind. 
These  mimicries  express  the  laughter  which  is  in 
heaven  at  earthly  pomps.  Frail  and  vapory  are  the 
glories  of  man,  even  as  the  parodies  of  those  glories 
are  frail  which  nature  weaves  in  clouds. 

As  another  of  those  natural  appearances  which 
must  have  haunted  men's  eyes  since  the  Flood,  but 
yet  had  never  forced  itself  into  conscious  notice  until 
arrested  by  Wordsworth,  I  may  notice  an  effect  of 
iteration  daily  exhibited  in  the  habits  of  cattle  :  — 

'  The  cattle  are  grazing, 
Their  heads  never  raising  ; 
There  are  forty  feeding  like  one.' 

Now,  merely  as  a  fact,  and  if  it  were  nothing  more, 
this  characteristic  appearance  in  the  habits  of  cows, 
when  all  repeat  the  action  of  each,  ought  not  to  have 
been  overlooked  by  those  who  profess  themselves 
engaged  in  holding  up  a  mirror  to  nature.  But  the 
fact  has  also  a  profound  meaning  as  a  hieroglyphic. 
In  all  animals  which  live  under  the  protection  of  man 
a  life  of  peace  and  quietness,  but  do  not  share  in  his 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  35 

labors  or  in  his  pleasures,  what  we  regard  is  the 
species,  and  not  the  individual.  Nobody  but  a  grazier 
ever  looks  at  one  cow  amongst  a  field  of  cows,  or  at 
one  sheep  in  a  flock.  But  as  to  those  animals  which 
are  more  closely  connected  with  man,  not  passively 
connected,  but  actively,  being  partners  in  his  toils  and 
perils  and  recreations,  such  as  horses,  dogs,  falcons, 
they  are  regarded  as  individuals,  and  are  allowed  the 
benefit  of  an  individual  interest.  It  is  not  that  cows 
have  not  a  differential  character,  each  for  herself; 
and  sheep,  it  is  well  known,  have  all  a  separate 
physiognomy  for  the  shepherd  who  has  cultivated  their 
acquaintance.  But  men  generally  have  no  oppor 
tunity  or  motive  for  studying  the  individualities  of 
creatures,  however  otherwise  respectable,  that  are  too 
much  regarded  by  all  of  us  in  the  reversionary  light 
of  milk,  and  beef,  and  mutton.  Far  otherwise  it  is 
with  horses,  who  share  in  man's  martial  risks,  who 
sympathize  with  man's  frenzy  in  hunting,(who  divide 
with  man  the  burdens  of  noondayA  Far  otherwise  it 
is  with  dogs,  that  share  the  hearths  of  man,  and  adore 
the  footsteps  of  his  children.  These  man  loves  :  of 
these  he  makes  dear,  though  humble  friends.  These 
often  fight  for  him;  and  for  them  he  will  sometimes 
fight.  Of  necessity,  therefore,  every  horse  and  every 
dog  is  an  individual  —  has  a  sort  of  personality  that 
makes  him  separately  interesting  —  has  a  beauty  and 
a  character  of  his  own.  Go  to  Melton,  therefore,  and 
what  will  you  see  ?  Every  man,  every  horse,  every 
dog,  glorying  in  the  plentitude  of  life,  is  in  a  different 
attitude,  motion,  gesture,  action.  It  is  not  there  the 
sublime  unity  which  you  must  seek,  where  forty  are 


36  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

like  one  ;  but  the  sublime  infinity,  like  that  of  ocean, 
like  that  of  Flora,  like  that  of  nature,  where  no  repe 
titions  are  endured,  no  leaf  the  copy  of  another  leaf, 
no  absolute  identity,  and  no  painful  tautologies.  This 
subject  might  be  pursued  into  profounder  recesses;  but 
in  a  popular  discussion  it  is  necessary  to  forbear. 

A  volume  might  be  filled  with  such  glimpses  of 
novelty  as  Wordsworth  has  first  laid  bare,  even  to  the 
apprehension  of  the  senses.  For  the  understanding, 
when  moving  in  the  same  track  of  human  sensibilities, 
he  has  done  only  not  so  much.  How  often  (to  give 
an  instance  or  two)  must  the  human  heart  have  felt 
that  there  are  sorrows  which  descend  far  below  the 
region  in  which  tears  gather  ;  and  yet  who  has  ever 
given  utterance  to  this  feeling  until  Wordsworth  came 
with  his  immortal  line  — 

'  Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears  ? ' 

This  sentiment,  and  others  that  might  be  adduced, 
(such  as  '  The  child  is  father  of  the  man,')  have  even 
passed  into  the  popular  mind,  and  are  often  quoted  by 
those  who  know  not  whom  they  are  quoting.  Magni 
ficent,  again,  is  the  sentiment,  and  yet  an  echo  to  one 
which  lurks  amongst  all  hearts,  in  relation  to  the 
frailty  of  merely  human  schemes  for  working  good, 
which  so  often  droop  and  collapse  through  the  un 
steadiness  of  human  energies, — 

.'  foundations  must  be  laid 

In  Heaven. 

How  ?  Foundations  laid  in  realms  that  arc  above  ? 
But  that  is  at  war  with  physics ;  —  foundations  must 
be  laid  bdow.  Yes  ;  and  even  so  the  poet  throws  the 


ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY.  37 

mind  yet  more  forcibly  on  the  hyperphysical  char 
acter —  on  the  grandeur  transcending  all  physics  — 
of  those  shadowy  foundations  which  alone  are  endur 
ing. 

But  the  great  distinction  of  Wordsworth,  and  the 
pledge  of  his  increasing  popularity,  is  the  extent  of 
his  sympathy  with  what  is  really  permanent  in  human 
feelings,  and  also  the  depth  of  this  sympathy.  Young 
and  Cowper,  the  two  earlier  leaders  in  the  province 
of  meditative  poetry,  are  too  circumscribed  in  the 
range  of  their  sympathies,  too  exclusive,  and  often 
times  not  sufficiently  profound.  Both  these  poets 
manifested  the  quality  of  their  strength  by  the  quality 
of  their  public  reception.  Popular  in  some  degree 
from  the  first,  they  entered  upon  the  inheritance  of 
their  fame  almost  at  once.  ;  Far  different  was  the  fate 
of  Wordsworth ;  for,  in  poetry  of  this  class,  which 
appeals  to  what  lies  deepest  in  man,  in  proportion  to 
the  native  power  of  the  poet,  and  his  fitness  for  per 
manent  life,  is  the  strength  of  resistance  in  the  public 
taste.  Whatever  is  too  original  will  be  hated  at  the 
first.  It  must  slowly  mould  a  public  for  itself;  and 
the  resistance  of  the  early  thoughtless  judgments  must 
be  overcome  by  a  counter  resistance  to  itself,  in  a 
better  audience  slowly  mustering  against  the  first. 
Forty  and  seven  years  it  is  since  William  Wordsworth 
first  appeared  as  an  author.  Twenty  of  those  years 
he  was  the  scoff  of  the  world,  and  his  poetry  a  by 
word  of  scorn.  Since  then,  and  more  than  once, 
senates  have  rung  with  acclamations  to  the  echo  of 
his  name.  Now  at  this  moment,  whilst  we  are  talking 
about  him,  he  has  entered  upon  his  seventy-sixth  year. 


38  ON  WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

For  himself,  according  to  the  course  of  nature,  he 
cannot  be  far  from  his  setting  ;  but  his  poetry  is  but 
now  clearing  the  clouds  that  gathered  about  its  rising. 
Meditative  poetry  is  perhaps  that  which  will  finally 
maintain  most  power  upon  generations  more  thought 
ful  ;  and  in  this  department,  at  least,  there  is  little 
competition  to  be  apprehended  by  Wordsworth  from 
anything  that  has  appeared  since  the  death  of  Shak- 
speare. 


PERCY   BYSSIIE   SHELLEY. 


THERE  is  no  writer  named  amongst  men,  of  whom, 
so  much  as  of  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley,  it  is  difficult  for 
a  conscientious  critic  to  speak  with  the  truth  and  the 
respect  due  to  his  exalted  powers,  and  yet  without 
offence  to  feelings  the  most  sacred,  which  too  memo 
rably  he  outraged.  The  indignation  which  this  power 
ful  young  writer  provoked,  had  its  root  in  no  personal 
feelings  —  those  might  have  been  conciliated;  in  no 
worldly  feelings  —  those  might  have  proved  transitory; 
but  in  feelings  the  holiest  which  brood  over  human 
life,  and  which  guard  the  sanctuary  of  religious  truth. 
Consequently,  which  is  a  melancholy  thought  for  any 
friend  of  Shelley's,  the  indignation  is  likely  to  be  co 
extensive  and  co-enduring  with  theywritings  that  pro 
voked  it.  That  bitterness  of  scorn  and  defiance  which 
still  burns  against  his  name  in  the  most  extensively 
meditative  section  of  English  society,  viz.  the  religious 
section,  is  not  of  a  nature  to  be  propitiated  :  selfish 
interests,  being  wounded,  might  be  compensated ; 
merely  human  interests  might  be  soothed  ;  but  inter 
ests  that  transcend  all  human  valuation,  being  so  in 
sulted,  must  upon  principle  reject  all  human  ransom 


40  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

or  conditions  of  human  compromise.  Less  than  peni 
tential  recantation  could  not  be  accepted  :  and  that  is 
now  impossible.  *  Will  ye  transact1  with  God?'  is 
the  indignant  language  of  Milton  in  a  case  of  that 
nature.  And  in  this  case  the  language  of  many  pious 
men  said  aloud,  — '  It  is  for  God  to  forgive  :  but  we, 
his  servants,  are  bound  to  recollect,  that  this  young 
man  offered  to  Christ  and  to  Christianity  the  deepest 
insult  which  ear  has  heard,  or  which  it  has  entered  into 
the  heart  of  man  to  conceive.'  Others,  as  in 
many,  had  charged  Christ  with  committing  suicide,  on 
the  principle  that  he  who  tempts  or  solicits  death  by 
doctrines  fitted  to  provoke  that  result,  is  virtually  the 
causer  of  his  own  destruction.  But  in  this  sense  every 
man  commits  suicide,  who  will  not  betray  an  interest 
confided  to  his  keeping  under  menaces  of  death  ;  the 
martyr,  who  perishes  for  truth,  when  by  deserting  it 
he  might  live  ;  the  patriot,  who  perishes  for  his  coun 
try,  when  by  betraying  it  he  might  win  riches  and 
honor.  And,  were  this  even  otherwise,  the  objection 
would  be  nothing  to  Christians  —  who,  recognising  the 
Deity  in  Christ,  recognise  his  unlimited  right  over  life. 
Some,  again,  had  pointed  their  insults  at  a  part  more 
vital  in  Christianity,  if  it  had  happened  to  be  as  vul 
nerable  as  they  fancied.  The  new  doctrine  introduced 
by  Christ,  of  forgiveness  to  those  who  injure  or  who 
hate  us, —  on  what  footing  was  it  placed?  Once,  at 
least  in  appearance,  on  the  idea,  that  by  assisting  or 
forgiving  an  enemy,  we  should  be  eventually  '  heaping 
coals  of  fire  upon  his  head.'  Mr.  Howdon,  in  a  very 
clever  book  [Rational  Investigation  of  the  Principles 
of  Natural  Philosophy:  London^  1840,]  calls  this  'a 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY.  41 

fiendish  idea,'  (p.  290)  :  and  I  acknowledge  that  to 
myself,  in  one  part  of  my  boyhood,  it  did  seem  a  re-  (, 
finement  of  malice.  My  subtilizing  habits,  however,  ' 
even  in  those  days,  soon  suggested  to  me  that  this  ag 
gravation  of  guilt  in  the  object  of  our  forgiveness  was 
not  held  out  as  the  motive  to  the  forgiveness,  but  as 
the  result  o£  it ;  secondly,  that  perhaps  no  aggrava 
tion  of  his  guilt  was  the  point  contemplated,  but  the 
salutary  stinging  into  life  of  his  remorse,  hitherto 
sleeping ;  thirdly,  that  every  doubtful  or  perplexing 
expression  must  be  overruled  and  determined  by  the 
prevailing  spirit  of  the  system  in  which  it  stands.  If 
Mr.  Howdon's  sense  were  the  true  one,  then  this  pas 
sage  would  be  in  pointed  hostility  to  every  other  part 
of  the  Christian  ethics.2 

These  were  affronts  to  the  Founder  of  Christianity, 
offered  too   much  in   the    temper  of  malignity.     But 
Shelley's  was   worse ;   more  bitter,  and  with    less   of 
countenance,  even  in  show  or  shadow,  from  any  fact, 
or  insinuation  of  a  fact,  that  Scripture  suggests.     In  / 
his  '  Queen  Mab,'  lie  gives  a  dreadful  portrait  of  God  i-~*~ 
and  tTuTt  no  question   may  arise,  of  what  God  ?   he      j 
names  him;  it  is  Jehovah.     He  asserts  his  existence;     I 
he  affirms  him  to  be  'an  almighty  God,  and  vengeful 
as  almighty.'     He   goes   on   to   describe    him   as  the 
4  omnipotent  fiend,'  who  found  'none  but  slaves'  [Is- 
rael  in  Egypt,  no  doubt]  to  be  '  his  tools,'  and  none 
but  'a  murderer'  [Moses,  I  presume]  'to  be  his  accom 
plice  in  crime.'     He  introduces  this  dreadful  Almighty 
as  speaking,  and  as  speaking  thus,  — 

1  From  an  eternity  of  idleness 
I,  God,  awoke  ;  in  seven  days'  toil  made  earth 
From  nothing  ;  rested  ;  and  created  man." 


42  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

But  man  he  hates  ;  and  he  goes  on  to  curse  him  ;  till 
at  the  intercession  of  '  the  murderer,'  who  is  electrified 
into  pity  for  the  human  race  by  the  very  horror  of  the 
divine  curses,  God  promises  to  send  his  son  —  only, 
however,  for  the  benefit  of  a  few.  This  son  appears  ; 
the  poet  tells  us  that  — 

<  the  Incarnate  came  j  humbly  he  came, 

Veiling  his  horrible  Godhead  in  the  shape 

Of  man,  scorn'd  by  the  world,  his  name  unheard 

Save  by  the  rabble  of  his  native  town.' 

The  poet  pursues  this  incarnate  God  as  a  teacher  of 
men ;  teaching,  '  in  semblance,'  justice,  truth,  and 
peace  ;  but  underneath  all  this,  kindling  '  quenchless 
flames,'  which  eventually  were  destined 

'  to  satiate,  with  the  blood 

Of  truth  and  freedom,  his  malignant  soul.' 

He  follows  him  to  his  crucifixion  ;  and  describes  him, 
whilst  hanging  on  the  cross,  as  shedding  malice  upon 
a  reviler,  —  malice  on  the  cross  ! 

1  A  smile  of  godlike  malice  reillumined 
His  fading  lineaments  :  ' 

and  his  parting  breath  is  uttered  in  a  memorable 
curse. 

This  atrocious  picture  of  the  Deity,  in  his  dealings 
with  man,  both  pre-Christian  and  post-Christian,  is 
certainly  placed  in  the  mouth  of  the  wandering  Jew. 
But  the  internal  evidence,  as  well  as  collateral  evidence 
from  without,  make  it  clear  that  the  Jew,  (whose 
version  of  scriptural  records  nobody  in  the  poem 
disputes,)  here  represents  the  person  of  the  poet. 
Shelley  had  opened  his  career  as  an  atheist;  and  as 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  43 

a  proselytizing  atheist.  But  he  was  then  a  boy.  At 
the  date  of  l  Queen  Mab '  he  was  a  young  man.  And 
we  now  find  him  advanced  from  the  station  of  an 
atheist  to  the  more  intellectual  one  of  a  believer  in 
God  and  in  the  mission  of  Christ;  but  of  one  who 
fancied  himself  called  upon  to  defy  and  to  hate  both, 
in  so  far  as  they  had  revealed  their  relations  to 
man. 

Mr.  Gilfillan*  thinks  that  'Shelley  was  far  too 
harshly  treated  in  his  speculative  boyhood;'  and  it 
strikes  him  '  that,  had  pity  and  kind-hearted  expostu 
lation  been  tried,  instead  of  reproach  and  abrupt 
expulsion,  they  might  have  weaned  him  from  the 
dry  dugs  of  Atheism  to  the  milky  breast  of  the  faith 
and  "  worship  of  sorrow  ; "  and  the  touching  specta- 
tacle  had  been  renewed,  of  the  demoniac  sitting, 
"clothed,  and  in  his  right  mind,"  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.' 
I  am  not  of  that  opinion  :  and  it  is  an  opinion  which 
seems  to  ojuestion  the  sincerity  of  Shelley,  —  that 
quality  which  in  him  was  deepest,  so  as  to  form  the 
basis  of  his  nature,  if  we  allow  ourselves  to  think  -1 
that,  by  personal  irritation,  he  had  been  piqued  into 
infidelity,  or  that  by  flattering  conciliation  he  could 
have  been  bribed  back  into  a  profession  of  Christian 
ity.  Like  a  wild  horse  of  the  Pampas,  he  would  have 
thrown  up  his  heels,  and  whinnied  his  disdain  of  any 
man  coming  to  catch  him  with  a  bribe  of  oats.  He 
had  a  constant  vision  of  a  manger  and  a  halter  in 
the  rear  of  all  such  caressing  tempters,  once  having 
scented  the  gales  of  what  he  thought  perfect  freedom, 

*  '  Gallery  of  Literary  Portraits.' 


44  PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

from  the  lawless  desert.  His  feud  with  Christianity 
was  a  craze  derived  from  some  early  wrench  of  his 
understanding,  and  made  obstinate  to  the  degree  in 
which  we  find  it,  from  having  rooted  itself  in  certain 
combinations  of  ideas  that,  once  coalescing,  could  not 
be  shaken  loose  ;  such  as,  that  Christianity  underprop 
ped  the  corruptions  of  the  earth,  in  the  shape  of 
wicked  governments  that  might  else  have  been  over 
thrown,  or  of  wicked  priesthoods  that,  but  for  the 
shelter  of  shadowy  and  spiritual  terrors,  must  have 
trembled  before  those  whom  they  overawed.  Kings 
that  were  clothed  in  bloody  robes  ;  dark  hierarchies 
that  scowled  upon  the  poor  children  of  the  soil ;  these 
objects  took  up  a  permanent  station  in  the  background 
of  Shelley's  imagination,  not  to  be  dispossessed  more 
than  the  phantom  of  Banquo  from  the  festival  of  Mac 
beth,  and  composed  a  towering  Babylon  of  mystery 
that,  to  his  belief,  could  not  have  flourished,  under  any 
umbrage  less  vast  than  that  of  Christianity.  Such 
was  the  inextricable  association  of  images  that  domi 
neered  over  Shelley's  mind :  such  was  the  hatred 
which  he  built  upon  that  association,  —  an  association 
casual  and  capricious,  yet  fixed  and  petrified  as  if  by 
frost.  Can  we  imagine  the  case  of  an  angel  touched 
by  lunacy  ?  Have  we  ever  seen  the  spectacle  of  a 
human  intellect,  exquisite  by  its  functions  of  creation, 
yet  in  one  chamber  of  its  shadowy  house  already 
ruined  before  the  light  of  manhood  had  cleansed  its 
darkness?  Such  an  angel,  such  a  man,  —  if  ever 
such  there  were,  —  such  a  lunatic  angel,  such  a  ruined 
man,  was  Shelley,  whilst  yet  standing  on  the  earliest 
threshold  of  life. 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY.  45 

Mr.  Gilfillan,  whose  eye  is  quick  to  seize  the  lurk 
ing  and  the  stealthy  aspect  of  things,  does  not  overlook 
the  absolute  midsummer  madness  which  possessed 
Shelley  upon  the  suhject  of  Christianity.  Shelley's 
total  nature  was  altered  and  darkened  when  that  theme 
arose  :  transfiguration  fell  upon  him.  He  that  was  so 
gentle,  became  savage  ;  he  that  breathed  by  the  very 
lungs  of  Christianity  —  that  was  so  merciful,  so  full  of 
tenderness  and  pity,  of  humility,  of  love  and  forgive 
ness,  then  raved  and  screamed  like  an  idiot  whom  once 
I  personally  knew,  when  offended  by  a  strain  of  heav 
enly  music  at  the  full  of  the  moon,  [in  both  cases,  it 
was  the  sense  of  perfect  beauty  revealed  under  the 
sense  of  morbid  estrangement. "  This  it  is,  as  I  pre 
sume,  which  Mr.  Gilfillan  alludes  to  in  the  following 
passage,  (p.  104)  :  4  On  all  other  subjects  the  wisest 
of  the  wise,  the  gentlest  of  the  gentle,  the  bravest  of 
the  brave,  yet,  when  one  topic  was  introduced,  he  be 
came  straightway  insane  ;  his  eyes  glared,  his  voice 
screamed,  his  hand  vibrated  frenzy.'  But  Mr.  Gilfil 
lan  is  entirely  in  the  wrong  when  he  countenances  the 
notion  that  harsh  treatment  had  any  concern  in  riveting 
the  fanaticism  of  Shelley.  On  the  contrary,  he  met 
with  an  indulgence  to  the  first  manifestation  of  his 
anti-Christian  madness,  better  suited  to  the  goodness 
of  the  lunatic  than  to  the  pestilence  of  his  lunacy.  It 
was  at  Oxford  that  this  earliest  explosion  of  Shelleyism 
occurred  ;  and  though,  with  respect  to  secrets  of  prison- 
houses,  and  to  discussions  that  proceed  '  with  closed 
doors,'  there  is  always  a  danger  of  being  misinformed, 
I  believe,  from  the  uniformity  of  such  accounts  as  have 
reached  myself,  that  the  following  brief  of  the  matter 


46  PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

may  be  relied  on.  Shelley,  being  a  venerable  sage  of 
sixteen,  or  rather  less,  came  to  a  resolution  that  he 
would  convert,  and  that  it  was  his  solemn  duty  to  con 
vert,  the  universal  Christian  church  to  Atheism  or  to 
Pantheism,  no  great  matter  which.  But,  as  such  large 
undertakings  require  time,  twenty  months,  suppose,  or 
even  two  years,  —  for  you  know,  reader,  that  a  rail- 
way  requires  on  an  average  little  less,  —  Shelley  was 
determined  to  obey  no  impulse  of  youthful  rashness. 
Oh  no !  Down  with  presumption,  down  with  levity, 
down  with  boyish  precipitation !  Changes  of  religion 
are  awful  things  :  people  must  have  time  to  think.  He 
would  move  slowly  and  discreetly.  So  first  he  wrote 
a  pamphlet,  clearly  and  satisfactorily  explaining  the 
necessity  of  being  an  atheist ;  and,  with  his  usual  ex 
emplary  courage,  (for,  seriously,  he  was  the  least /a/se 
of  human  creatures,)  Shelley  put  his  name  to  the 
pamphlet,  and  the  name  of  his  college.  His  ultimate 
object  was  to  accomplish  a  general .  apostasy  in  the 
Christian  church  of  whatever  name.  But  for  one  six 
months,  it  was  quite  enough  if  he  caused  a  revolt  in 
the  Church  of  England.  And  as,  before  a  great  naval 
action,  when  the  enemy  is  approaching,  you  throw  a 
long  shot  or  two  by  way  of  trying  his  range,  —  on  that 
principle  Shelley  had  thrown  out  his  tract  in  Oxford. 
Oxford  formed  the  advanced  squadron  of  the  English 
Church  ;  and,  by  way  of  a  coup  d'essai,  though  in 
itself  a  bagatelle,  what  if  he  should  begin  with  con 
verting  Oxford  ?  To  make  any  beginning  at  all  is  one 
half  the  battle ;  or,  as  a  writer  in  this  magazine  [June 
1845]  suggests,  a  good  deal  more.  To  speak  seriously, 
there  is  something  even  thus  far  in  the  boyish  presump- 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHE 

tion  of  Shelley,  not  altogether  without  nobility.  Ho 
affronted  the  armies  of  Christendom.  Had  it  been 
possible  for  him  to  be  jesting,  it  would  not  have  been 
noble.  But  here,  even  in  the  most  monstrous  of  his 
undertakings,  here,  as  always,  he  was  perfectly  sin 
cere  and  single-minded.  Satisfied  that  Atheism  was 
the  sheet  anchor  of  the  world,  he  was  not  the  person 
to  speak  by  halves.  Being  a  boy,  he  attacked  those 
[upon  a  point  the  most  sure  to  irritate]  who  were  gray  ; 
having  no  station  in  society,  he  flew  at  the  throats  of 
none  but  those  who  had ;  weaker  than  an  infant  for 
the  purpose  before  him,  he  planted  his  fist  in  the  face 
of  a  giant,  saying,  '  Take  that,  you  devil,  and  that, 
and  that.1  The  pamphlet  had  been  published ;.  and 
though  an  undergraduate  of  Oxford  is  not  (technically 
speaking)  a  member  of  the  university  as  a  responsible 
corporation,  still  he  bears  a  near  relation  to  it.  And 
the  heads  of  colleges  felt  a  disagreeable  summons  to 
an  extra-meeting.  There  are  in  Oxford  five-and- 
twenty  colleges,  to  say  nothing  of  halls.  Frequent 
and  full  the  heads  assembled  in  Golgotha,  a  well- 
known  Oxonian  chamber,  which,  being  interpreted, 
(as  scripturally  we  know,)  is  'the  place  of  a  skull,' 
and  must,  therefore,  naturally  be  the  place  of  a  head. 
There  the  heads  met  to  deliberate.  What  was  to  be 
done  ?  Most  of  them  were  inclined  to  mercy :  to 
proceed  at  all  —  was  to  proceed  to  extremities;  and, 
(generally  speaking,)  to  expel  a  man  from  Oxford,  is 
to  ruin  his  prospects  in  any  of  the  liberal  professions. 
Not,  therefore,  from  consideration  for  Shelley's  posi 
tion  in  society,  but  on  the  kindest  motives  of  forbear 
ance  towards  one  so  young,  the  heads  decided  for 


48  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

declining   all    notice    of  the    pamphlet.     Levelled    at 
them,  it  was   not   specially  addressed   to  them  ;  and, 
amongst  the  infinite  children  born  every  morning  from 
that  mightiest  of  mothers,  the  press,  why  should  Gol 
gotha  be  supposed  to  have  known  anything,  officially, 
of  this  little  brat?     That  evasion  might  suit  some  peo 
ple,  but  not  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley.     There  was  a  flaw 
(was  there?)  in  his  process;   his  pleading  could  not, 
regularly,  come   up  before   the   court.     Very  well  — 
he  would  heal  that  defect  immediately.     So  he  sent 
his    pamphlet,  with    five-and-twenty   separate    letters, 
addressed  to  the  fivc-and-twcnty  heads  of  colleges  in 
Golgotha  assembled;    courteously   'inviting'   all   and 
every  of  them  to  notify,  at  his  earliest  convenience, 
his  adhesion  to  the  enclosed  unanswerable  arguments 
for  Atheism.     Upon  this,  it   is  undeniable  that  Gol 
gotha   looked    black ;    and,   after  certain    formalities, 
fc  invited'  P.  B.  Shelley  to  consider  himself  expelled 
from   the    University   of  Oxford.     But,   if  this    were 
harsh,  how  would  Mr.  Gilfillan  have  had  them  to  pro 
ceed  ?     Already  they  had  done,  perhaps,  too  much  in 
the  way  of  forbearance.     There   were   many  men   in 
Oxford  who  knew  the   standing  of  Shelley's  family. 
Already  it  was  whispered  that  any  man  of  obscure 
connections  would  have  been  visited  for  his  Atheism, 
whether  writing  to  Golgotha  or  not.     And  this  whisper 
would  have  strengthened,  had  any  further  neglect  been 
shown    to    formal  letters,  which    requested    a   formal 
answer.     The  authorities  of  Oxford,  deeply  responsible 
to  the  nation  in  a  matter  of  so  much  peril,  could  not 
have  acted  otherwise  than  they  did.     They  were  not 
severe.     The  severity  was  extorted  and  imposed  by 


PERCY   BYSSHE    SHELLEY.  49 

Shelley.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  some  palliation 
of  Shelley's  conduct,  it  ought  to  be  noticed  that  he  is 
unfairly  placed,  by  the  undistinguishing,  on  the  manly 
station  of  an  ordinary  Oxford  student.  The  under 
graduates  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  not  '  boys,'  as 
a  considerable  proportion  must  be,  for  good  reasons, 
in  other  universities,  —  the  Scottish  universities,  for  in 
stance,  of  Glasgow  and  St.  Andrews,  and  many  of  those 
on  the  continent.  Few  of  the  English  students  even 
begin  their  residence  before  eighteen  ;  and  the  larger 
proportion  are  at  least  twenty.  Whereas  Shelley  was 
really  a  boy  at  this  era,  anal  no  man.  He  had  entered 
on  his  sixteenth  year,  and  he  was  still  in  the  earliest 
part  of  his  academic  career,  when  his  obstinate  and 
reiterated  attempt  to  inoculate  the  university  with  a 
disease  that  he  fancied  indispensable  to  their  mental 
health,  caused  his  expulsion. 

I  imagine  that  Mr.  Gilfillan  will  find  himself  com 
pelled,  hereafter,  not  less  by  his  own  second  thoughts, 
than  by  the  murmurs  of  some  amongst  his  readers,  to 
revise  that  selection  of  memorial  traits,  whether  acts  or 
habits,  by  which  he  seeks  to  bring  Shelley,  as  a  familiar 
presence,  within  the  field  of  ocular  apprehension.  The 
acts  selected,  unless  characteristic,  —  the  habits  se 
lected,  unless  representative,  —  must  be  absolutely 
impertinent  to  the  true  identification  of  the  man;  and 
most  of  those  rehearsed  by  Mr.  Gilfillan,  unless  where 
they  happen  to  be  merely  accidents  of  bodily  constitu 
tion,  are  such  as  all  of  us  would  be  sorry  to  suppose 
naturally  belonging  to  Shelley.  To  '  rush  out  of  the 
room  in  terror,  as  his  wild  imagination  painted  to  him 
a  pair  of  eyes  in  a  lady's  breast,'  is  not  so  much  a 
4 


50  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

movement  of  poetic  frenzy,  as  of  typhus  fever — to 
*  terrify  an  old  lady  out  of  her  wits,'  by  assuming,  in 
a  stage-coach,  the  situation  of  a  regal  sufferer  from 
Shakspeare,  is  not  eccentricity  so  much  as  painful 
discourtesy  —  and  to  request  of  Rowland  Hill,  a  man 
most  pious  and  sincere,  '  the  use  of  Surrey  chapel,'  as 
a  theatre  for  publishing  infidelity,  would  have  been  so 
thoroughly  the  act  of  a  heartless  coxcomb,  that  I,  for 
one,  cannot  bring  myself  to  believe  it  an  authentic 
anecdote.  Not  that  I  doubt  of  Shelley's  violating  at 
times  his  own  better  nature,  as  every  man  is  capable 
of  doing,  under  youth  too  fervid,  wine  too  potent,  and 
companions  too  misleading;  but  it  strikes  me  that, 
during  Shelley's  very  earliest  youth,  the  mere  accident 
of  Rowland  Hill's  being  a  man  well-born  and  aristo 
cratically  connected,  yet  sacrificing  these  advantages  to 
what  he  thought  the  highest  of  services,  spiritual  ser 
vice  on  behalf  of  poor  laboring  men,  would  have  laid 
a  pathetic  arrest  upon  any  impulse  of  fun  in  one  who, 
with  the  very  same  advantages  of  birth  and  position, 
had  the  same  deep  reverence  for  the  rights  of  the  poor. 
Willing,  at  all  times,  to  forget  his  own  pretensions  in 
the  presence  of  those  who  seemed  powerless  —  willing 
in  a  degree  that  seems  sublime  —  Shelley  could  not 
but  have  honored  the  same  nobility  of  feeling  in  an 
other.  And  Rowland  Hill,  by  his  guileless  simplicity, 
had  a  separate  hold  upon  a  nature  so  childlike  as  Shel 
ley's.  „  He  was  full  of  love  to  man  ;  so  was  Shelley.  ! 
He  was  full  of  humility ;  so  was  Shelley.  Difference 
of  creed,  however  vast  the  interval  which  it  created 
between  the  men,  could  not  have  hid  from  Shelley's 
eye  the  close  approximation  of  their  natures.  Jnfidcl 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  51 

by  his  intellect,  Shelley  was  a  Christian  in  the  tcnden- 
cies_ofjiis  heart.  As  to  his  4  lying  asleep  on  tho 
hearth-rug,  with  his  small  round  head  thrust  almost 
into  the  very  fire,'  this,  like  his  4  basking  in  the  hottest 
beams  of  an  Italian  sun,'  illustrates  nothing  but  his 
physical  temperament.  That  he  should  be  seen  *  de 
vouring  large  pieces  of  bread  amid  his  profound  ab 
stractions,'  simply  recalls  to  my  eye  some  hundred 
thousands  of  children  in  the  streets  of  great  cities, 
Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  London,  whom  I  am  daily  de 
tecting  in  the  same  unaccountable  practice  ;  and  yet, 
probably,  with  very  little  abstraction  to  excuse  it ; 
whilst  his  'endless  cups  of  tea,'  in  so  tea-drinking  a 
land  as  ours,  have  really  ceased  to  offer  the  attractions 
of  novelty  which,  eighty  years  ago,  in  the  reign  of 
Dr.  Johnson,  and  under  a  higher  price  of  tea,  they 
might  have  secured.  Such  habits,  however,  are  in 
offensive,  if  not  particularly  mysterious,  nor  particu 
larly  significant.  But  that,  in  defect  of  a  paper  boat, 
Shelley  should  launch  upon  the  Serpentine  a  fifty 
pound  bank  note,  seems  to  my  view  an  act  of  child 
ishness,  or  else  (which  is  worse)  an  act  of  empty  os 
tentation,  not  likely  to  proceed  from  one  who  gene 
rally  exhibited  in  his  outward  deportment  a  sense  of 
true  dignity.  He  who,  through  his  family,3  connected 
himself  with  that  '  spirit  without  spot,'  (as  Shelley  calls 
him  in  the  'Adonais,')  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  (a  man  how 
like  in  gentleness,  and  in  faculties  of  mind,  to  himself !) 
—  he  that,  by  consequence,  connected  himself  with 
that  later  descendant  of  Penshurst,  the  noble  martyr  of 
freedom,  Algernon  Sidney,  could  not  have  degraded 
himself  by  a  pride  so  mean  as  any  which  roots  itself 


52  PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

in  wealth.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  anecdote  of  his 
repeating  Dr.  Johnson's  benign  act,  by  4  lifting  a  poor 
houseless  outcast  upon  his  back,  and  carrying  her  to  a 
place  of  refuge,'  I  read  so  strong  a  character  of  inter 
nal  probability,  that  it  would  be  gratifying  to  know 
upon  what  external  testimony  it  rests. 

The  life  of  Shelley,  according  to  the  remark  of  Mr. 
^/Gilfillan,  was  4  among  the  most  romantic  in  literary 
story.'  Everything  was  romantic  in  his  short  career; 
everything  wore,  a  tragic  interest.  From  his  child 
hood  he  moved  through  a  succession  of  afflictions. 
Always  craving  for  love,  loving  and  seeking  to  be 
loved,  always  he  was  destined  to  reap  hatred  from 
those  with  whom  life  had  connected  him.  If  in  the 
darkness  he  raised  up  images  of  his  departed  hours, 
he  would  behold  his  family  disowning  him,  and  the 
home  of  his  infancy  knowing  him  no  more ;  he  would 
behold  his  magnificent  university,  that  under  happier 
circumstances  would  have  gloried  in  his  genius,  reject 
ing  him  for  ever;  he  would  behold  his  first  wife, 
whom  once  he  had  loved  passionately,  through  calami 
ties  arising  from  himself,  called  away  to  an  early  and 
a  tragic  death.  The  peace  after  which  his  heart 
panted  for  ever,  in  what  dreadful  contrast  it  stood 
to  the  eternal  contention  upon  which  his  restless 
intellect  or  accidents  of  position  threw  him  like  a 
passive  victim  !  It  seemed  as  if  not  any  choice  of 
his,  but  some  sad  doom  of  opposition  from  without, 
forced  out,  as  by  a  magnet,  struggles  of  frantic  resist 
ance  from  him,  which  as  gladly  he  would  have  evaded, 
as  ever  victim  of  epilepsy  yearned  to  evade  his  con 
vulsions  !  Gladly  he  would  have  slept  in  eternal 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  53 

seclusion,  whilst  eternally  the  trumpet  summoned  him 
to  battle.  In  storms  unwillingly  created  by  himself, 
he  lived;  in  a  storm,  cited  by  the  finger  of  God,  he 


It  is  affecting,  —  at  least  it  is  so  for  any  one  who 
believes  in  the  profound  sincerity  of  Shelley,  a  man 
(however  erring)  whom  neither  fear,  nor  hope,  nor 
vanity,  nor  hatred,  ever  seduced  into  falsehood,  or 
even  into  dissimulation,  —  to  read  the  account  which 
he  gives  of  a  revolution  occurring  in  his  own  mind 
at  school  :  so  early  did  his  struggles  begin  !  It  is  in 
verse,  and  forms  part  of  those  beautiful  stanzas  ad 
dressed  to  his  second  wife,  which  he  prefixed  to  l  The 
Revolt  of  Islam.'  Five  or  six  of  these  stanzas  may 
be  quoted  with  a  certainty  of  pleasing  many  readers, 
whilst  they  throw  light  on  the  early  condition  of 
Shelley's  feelings,  and  of  his  early  anticipations  with 
regard  to  the  promises  and  the  menaces  of  life. 

'  Thoughts  of  great  deeds  were  mine,  dear  friend,  when  first 
The  clouds  which  wrap  this  world,  from  youth  did  pass. 
I  do  remember  well  the  hour  which  burst 
My  spirit's  sleep  ;  a  fresh  May-dawn  it  was, 
When  I  walk'd  forth  upon  the  glittering  grass, 
And  wept  —  I  knew  not  why  ;  until  there  rose, 
From  the  near  school-room,  voices  that,  alas  ! 
Were  but  one  echo  from  a  world  of  woes  — 
The  harsh  and  grating  strife  of  tyrants  and  of  foes. 

And  then  I  clasp'd  my  hands,  and  look'd  around  — 
(But  none  was  near  to  mock  my  streaming  eyes, 
Which  pour'd  their  warm  drops  on  the  sunny  ground,) 
So  without  shame  I  spake  —  I  will  be  wise, 
And  just,  and  free,  and  mild,  if  in  me  lies 


54  PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

Such  power  :  for  I  grow  weary  to  behold 
The  selfish  and  the  strong  still  tyrannize 
Without  reproach  or  check.     I  then  controll'd 
My  tears  ;  my  heart  grew  calm  ;  and  I  was  meek  and  bold. 

And  from  that  hour  did  I  with  earnest  thought 
Heap  knowledge  from  forbidden  mines  of  lore  : 
Yet  nothing,  that  my  tyrants  knew  or  taught, 
I  cared  to  learn  ;  but  from  that  secret  store 
Wrought  linked  armor  for  my  soul,  before 
It  might  walk  forth  to  war  among  mankind  : 
Thus  power  and  hope  were  strengthen'd  more  and  more 
Within  me,  till  there  came  upon  my  mind 
A  sense  of  loneliness,  a  thirst  with  which  I  pined. 

Alas,  that  love  should  be  a  blight  and  snare 
To  those  who  seek  all  sympathies  in  one  !  — 
Such  once  I  sought  in  vain  ;  then  black  despair, 
The  shadow  of  a  starless  night,  was  thrown 
Over  the  world  in  which  I  moved  alone  :  — 
Yet  never  found  I  one  not  false  to  me, 
Hard  hearts  and  cold,  like  weights  of  icy  stone 
Which  crush'd  and  wither'd  mine,  that  could  not  be 
Aught  but  a  lifeless  clog,  until  revived  by  thee. 

Thou,  friend,  whose  presence  on  my  wintry  heart 
Fell,  like  bright  spring  upon  some  herbless  plain  ; 
How  beautiful  and  calm  and  free  thou  wert 
In  thy  young  wisdom,  when  the  mortal  chain 
Of  Custom4  thou  didst  burst  and  rend  in  twain, 
And  walk'd  as  free  as  light  the  clouds  among, 
Which  many  an  envious  slave  then  breathed  in  vain 
From  his  dim  dungeon,  and  my  spirit  sprung 
To  meet  thee  from  the  woes  which  had  begirt  it  long. 

No  more  alone  through  the  world's  wilderness, 
Although  I  trod  the  paths  of  high  intent, 
I  journey'd  now  :  no  more  companionless, 
Where  solitude  is  like  despair,  I  went. 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY.  55 

Now  has  descended  a  serener  hour  ; 
And,  with  inconstant  fortune,  friends  return  : 
Though  suffering  leaves  the  knowledge  and  the  power 
Which  says  —  Let  scorn  be  not  repaid  with  scorn. 
And  from  thy  side  two  gentle  babes  are  born 
To  fill  our  home  with  smiles  ;  and  thus  are  we 
Most  fortunate  beneath  life's  beaming  morn  ; 
And  these  delights  and  thou  have  been  to  me 
The  parents  of  the  song  I  consecrate  to  thee.' 

My  own  attention  was  first  drawn  to  Shelley  by  the 
report  of  his  Oxford  labors  as  a  missionary  in  the 
service  of  infidelity.  Abstracted  from  the  absolute 
sincerity  and  simplicity  which  governed  that  boyish 
movement,  qualities  which  could  not  be  known  to  a 
stranger,  or  even  suspected  in  the  midst  of  so  much 
extravagance,  there  was  nothing  in  the  Oxford  reports 
of  him  to  create  any  interest  beyond  that  of  wonder 
at  his  folly  and  presumption  in  pushing  to  such  ex 
tremity  what,  naturally,  all  people  viewed  as  an 
elaborate  jest.  Some  curiosity,  however,  even  at  that 
time,  must  have  gathered  about  his  name ;  for  I 
remember  seeing,  in  London,  a  little  Indian  ink  sketch 
of  him  in  the  academic  costume  of  Oxford.  The 
sketch  tallied  pretty  well  with  a  verbal  description 
which  I  had  heard  of  him  in  some  company,  viz., 
that  he  looked  like  an  elegant  and  slender  flower, 
whose  head  drooped  from  being  surcharged  with  rain. 
This  gave,  to  the  chance  observer,  an  impression  that 
he  was  tainted,  even  in  his  external  deportment,  by 
some  excess  of  sickly  sentimcntalism,  from  which  I 
believe  that,  in  all  stages  of  his  life,  he  was  remark 
ably  free.  Between  two  and  three  years  after  this 
period,  which  was  that  of  his  expulsion  from  Oxford, 


56  PERCY   BYSSIIE    SHELLEY. 

he  married  a  beautiful  girl  named  Westbrook.  She 
was  respectably  connected ;  but  had  not  moved  in  a 
rank  corresponding  to  Shelley's ;  and  that  accident 
brought  him  into  my  own  neighborhood.  For  his 
family,  already  estranged  from  him,  were  now  thor 
oughly  irritated  by  what  they  regarded  as  a  mesalliance, 
and  withdrew,  or  greatly  reduced,  his  pecuniary  allow 
ances.  Such,  at  least,  was  the  story  current.  In  this 
embarrassment,  his  wife's  father  made  over  to  him  an 
annual  income  of  <£200  ;  and,  as  economy  had  become 
important,  the  youthful  pair — both,  in  fact,  still 
children  —  came  down  to  the  Lakes,  supposing  this 
region  of  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  to  be  a 
sequestered  place,  which  it  was,  for  eight  months  in 
the  year,  and  also  to  be  a  cheap  place  —  which  it  was 
not.  Another  motive  to  this  choice  arose  with  the 
then  Duke  of  Norfolk.  He  was  an  old  friend  of 
Shelley's  family,  and  generously  refused  to  hear  a 
word  of  the  young  man's  errors,  except  where  he 
could  'do  anything  to  relieve  him  from  their  conse 
quences.  His  grace  possessed  the  beautiful  estate  of 
Gobarrow  Park  on  Ulleswater,  and  other  estates  of 
greater  extent  in  the  same  two  counties  ;  5  his  own 
agents  he  had  directed  to  furnish  any  accommodations 
that  might  meet  Shelley's  views  ;  and  he  had  written 
to  some  gentlemen  amongst  his  agricultural  friends  in 
Cumberland,  requesting  them  to  pay  such  neighborly 
attentions  to  the  solitary  young  people  as  circum 
stances  might  place  in  their  power.  This  bias,  being 
impressed  upon  Shelley's  wanderings,  naturally  brought 
him  to  Keswick  as  the  most  central  and  the  largest 
of  the  little  towns  dispersed  amongst  the  lakes. 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY.  57 

Southcy,  made  aware  of  the  interest  taken  in  Shelley 
by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  with  his  usual  kindness 
immediately  called  upon  him  ;  and  the  ladies  of. 
Southey's  family  subsequently  made  an  early  call 
upon  Mrs.  Shelley.  One  of  them  mentioned  to  me 
as  occurring  in  this  first  visit  an  amusing  expression 
of  the  youthful  matron,  which,  four  years  later,  when 
I  heard  of  her  gloomy  end,  recalled  with  the  force 
of  a  pathetic  contrast,  that  icy  arrest  then  chaining  up 
her  youthful  feet  for  ever.  The  Shelleys  had  been 
induced  by  one  of  their  new  friends  to  take  part  of  a 
house  standing  about  half  a  mile  out  of  Keswick,  on 
the  Penrith  road  ;  more,  I  believe,  in  that  friend's 
intention  for  the  sake  of  bringing  them  easily  within 
his  hospitalities,  than  for  any  beauty  in  the  place. 
There  was,  however,  a  pretty  garden  attached  to  it. 
And  whilst  walking  in  this,  one  of  the  Southey  party 
asked  Mrs.  Shelley  if  the  garden  had  been  let  with 
their  part  of  the  house.  l  Oh,  no,'  she  replied,  4  the 
garden  is  not  ours ;  but  then,  you  know,  the  people 
let  us  run  about  in  it  whenever  Percy  and  I  are  tired 
of  sitting  in  the  house.'  The  naivete  of  this  expres 
sion  i  run  about,'  contrasting  so  picturesquely  with 
the  intermitting  efforts  of  the  girlish  wife  at  support 
ing  a  matron-like  gravity,  now  that  she  was  doing  the 
honors  of  her  house  to  married  ladies,  caused  all  the 
party  to  smile.  And  me  it  caused  profoundly  to  sigh, 
four  years  later,  when  the  gloomy  death  of  this  young 
creature,  now  frozen  in  a  distant  grave,  threw  back 
my  remembrance  upon  her  fawn-like  playfulness, 
which,  unconsciously  to  herself,  the  girlish  phrase  of 
run  about  so  naturally  betrayed. 

<s 


58  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

At  that  time  I  had  a  cottage  myself  in  Grasmere, 
'  just  thirteen  miles  distant  from  Shelley's  new  abode. 
As  he  had  then  written  nothing  of  any  interest,  I  had 
no  motive  for  calling  upon  him,  except  by  way  of 
showing  any  little  attentions  in  my  power  to  a  brother 
Oxonian,  and  to  a  man  of  letters.  These  attentions, 
indeed,  he  might  have  claimed  simply  in  the  character 
of  a  neighbor.  For  as  men  living  on  the  coast  of 
Mayo  or  Galway  arc  apt  to  consider  the  dwellers  on 
the  sea-board  of  North  America  in  the  light  of  next- 
door  neighbors,  divided  only  by  a  party-wall  of  crystal, 
—  and  what  if  accidentally  three  thousand  miles 
thick? — -'on  the  same  principle  we  amongst  the 
slender  population  of  this  lake  region,  and  wherever 
no  ascent  intervened  between  two  parties  higher  than 
Dunmail  Raise  and  the  spurs  of  Helvellyn,  were  apt 
to  take  with  each  other  the  privileged  tone  of  neigh 
bors.  Some  neighborly  advantages  I  might  certainly 
have  placed  at  Shelley's  disposal  —  Grasmere,  for 
instance,  itself,  which  tempted  at  that  time6  by  a 
beauty  that  had  not  been  sullied ;  Wordsworth,  who 
then  lived  in  Grasmere  ;  Elleray  and  Professor  Wilson, 
nine  miles  further;  finally,  my  own  library,  which, 
being  rich  in  the  wickedest  of  German  speculations, 
would  naturally  have  been  more  to  Shelley's  taste 
than  the  Spanish  library  of  Southey. 

But  all  these  temptations  were  negatived  for  Shelley 
by  his  sudden  departure.  Off  he  went  in  a  hurry : 
but  why  he  went,  or  whither  he  went,  I  did  not  inquire  ; 
not  guessing  the  interest  which  he  would  create  in 
my  mind,  six  years  later,  by  his  '  Revolt  of  Islam.' 
A  life  of  Shelley,  in  a  continental  edition  of  his 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  59 

works,  says  that  he  went  to  Edinburgh  and  to  Ireland. 
Some  time  after,  we  at  the  lakes  heard  that  he  was 
living  in  Wales.  Apparently  he  had  the  instinct 
within  him  of  his  own  Wandering  Jew  for  eternal 
restlessness.  But  events  were  now  hurrying  upon  his 
heart  of  hearts.  Within  less  than  ten  years  the  whole 
arrear  of  his  life  was  destined  to  revolve.  Within 
that  space,  he  had  the  whole  burden  of  life  and  death 
to  exhaust ;  he  had  all  his  suffering  to  sufTer,  and  all 
his  work  to  work. 

In  about  four  years  his  first  marriage  was  dissolved 
by  the  death  of  his  wife.  She  had  brought  to  Shelley 
two  children.  \  But  feuds  arose  between  them,  owing 
to  incompatible  h'abits  of  mind.  They  parted.  And 
it  is  one  chief  misery  of  a  beautiful  young  woman, 
separated  from  her  natural  protector,  that  her  desolate 
situation  attracts  and  stimulates  the  calumnies  of  the 
malicious.  Stung  by  these  calumnies,  and  oppressed 
(as  I  have  understood)  by  the  loneliness  of  her  abode, 
perhaps  also  by  the  delirium  of  fever,  she  threw  her 
self  into  a  pond,  and  was  drowned.  The  name  under 
which  she  first  enchanted  all  eyes,  and  sported  as  the 
most  playful  of  nymph-like  girls,  is  now  forgotten 
amongst  men  ;  and  that  other  name,  for  a  brief  period 
her  ambition  and  her  glory,  is  inscribed  on  her  grave 
stone  as  the  name  under  which  she  wept  and  she 
despaired,  —  suffered  and  was  buried,  —  turned  away 
even  from  the  faces  of  her  children,  and  sought  a 
hiding-place  in  darkness. 

After  this  dreadful  event,  an  anonymous  life  of 
Shelley  asserts  that  he  was  for  some  time  deranged. 
Pretending  to  no  private  and  no  circumstantial  ac- 


60  PERCY   BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

quaintance  with  the  case,  I  cannot  say  how  that  really 
was.  There  is  a  great  difficulty  besetting  all  sketches 
of  lives  so  steeped  in  trouble  as  was  Shelley's.  If 
you  have  a  confidential  knowledge  of  the  case,  as  a 
dear  friend  privileged  to  stand  by  the  bed-side  of 
raving  grief,  how  base  to  use  such  advantages  of 
position  for  the  gratification  of  a  fugitive  curiosity 
in  strangers  !  If  you  have  no  such  knowledge,  how 
little  qualified  you  must  be  for  tracing  the  life  with 
the  truth  of  sympathy,  or  for  judging  it  with  the  truth 
of  charity !  To  me  it  appears,  from  the  peace  of 
mind  which  Shelley  is  reported  afterwards  to  have 
recovered  for  a  time,  that  he  could  not  have  had  to 
reproach  himself  with  any  harshness  or  neglect  as 
contributing  to  the  shocking  catastrophe.  Neither*" 
ought  any  reproach  to  rest  upon  the  memoiy  of  this 
first  wife,  as  respects  her  relation  to  Shelley.  /Non 
conformity  of  tastes  might  easily  arise  between  two 
parties,  without  much  blame  to  either,  when  one  of 
the  two  had  received  from  nature  an  intellect  and  a 
temperament  so  dangerously  eccentric,  and  constitu 
tionally  carried,  by  delicacy  so  exquisite  of  organiza 
tion,  to  eternal  restlessness  and  irritability  of  nerves, 
if  not  absolutely  at  times  to  lunacy. 

About  three  years  after  this  tragic  event,  Shelley, 
in  company  with  his  second  wife,  the  daughter  of  God 
win,  and  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  passed  over  for  a  third 
time  to  the  Continent,  from  which  he  never  came  back. 
On  Monday,  July  8,  1822,  being  then  in  his  twenty- 
ninth  year,  he  was  returning  from  Leghorn  to  his  home 
at  Lerici,  in  a  schooner-rigged  boat  of  his  own,  twenty- 
four  feet  long,  eight  in  the  beam,  and  drawing  four 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY.  61 

feet  water.    His  companions  were  only  two,  —  Mr.  Wil 
liams,  formerly  of  the  Eighth  Dragoons,  and  Charles 
Vivian,  an  English  seaman  in  Shelley's  service.     The 
run  homewards  would  not  have  occupied  more  than 
six  or  eight  hours.     But  the  Gulf  of  Spezia  is  pecu 
liarly  dangerous  for  small  craft  in  bad  weather ;  and 
unfortunately  a  squall  of  about  one   hour's  duration 
came  on,  the  wind  at  the  same  time  shifting  so  as  to 
blow  exactly  in  the    teeth  of  the   course   to    Lerici. 
From  the  interesting  narrative  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Tre- 
lawney,  well  known  at  that  time  for  his  connection 
with  the  Greek  Revolution,  it  seems  that  for  eight  days 
the  fate  of  the  boat  was  unknown ;  and  during  that 
time  couriers  had  been  dispatched  along  the  whole  line 
of  coast  between  Leghorn  and   Nice,  under  anxious 
hopes   that   the  voyagers   might  have  run  into  some 
creek  for  shelter.     But  at  the  end  of  the  eight  days 
this  suspense  ceased.    Some  articles  belonging  to  91^1- 
ley's  boat  had  previously  been  washed  ashore  :   these 
might  have  been  thrown   overboard  ;   but  finally  the 
two  bodies  of  Shelley  arid  Mr.  Williams  came  on  shore 
near  Via  Reggio,  about  four  miles  apart.     Both  were 
in  a  state  of  advanced  decomposition,  but  were  fully 
identified.     Vivian's  body  was  not  recovered  for  three 
weeks.     From   the  state  of  the  two  corpses,  it  had 
become  difficult  to  remove  them ;  and  they  were  there 
fore  burned  by  the    seaside,  on   funeral  pyres,  with 
the  classic  rites  of  paganism,  four  English  gentlemen 
being  present,  —  Capt.  Shenley  of  the  navy,  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt,  Lord  Byron,  and  Mr.  Trelawney.     A  circum 
stance    is   added    by    Mr.    Gilfillan,    which    previous 
accounts   do  not   mention,  viz.,  that  Shelley's  heart 


62  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

remained  unconsumed  by  the  fire  ;  but  this  is  a  pheno 
menon  that  has  repeatedly  occurred  at  judicial  deaths 
by  fire.  The  remains  of  Mr.  Williams,  when  col 
lected  from  the  fire,  were  conveyed  to  England  ;  but 
Shelley's  were  buried  in  the  Protestant  burying-ground 
at  Rome,  not  far  from  a  child  of  his  own,  and  Keats 
the  poet.  It  is  remarkable  that  Shelley,  in  the  preface 
to  his  Adonais,  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  that  young 
poet,  had  spoken  with  delight  of  this  cemetery,  —  as 
4  An  open  space  among  the  ruins '  (of  ancient  Rome,) 
*  covered  in  winter  with  violets  and  daisies  ; '  adding, 
4  It  might  make  one  in  love  with  death,  to  think  that 
one  should  be  buried  in  so  sweet  a  place.' 

I  have  allowed  myself  to  abridge  the  circumstances 
as  reported  by  Mr.  Trelawney  and  Mr.  Hunt,  partly 
on  the  consideration  that  three-and-twenty  years  have 
parsed  since  the  event,  so  that  a  new  generation  has 
hi?  time  to  grow  up  —  not  feeling  the  interest  of  con 
temporaries  in  Shelley,  and  generally,  therefore,  unac 
quainted  with  the  case  ;  but  partly  for  the  purpose  of 
introducing  the  following  comment  of  Mr.  Gilfillan  on 
the  striking  points  of  a  catastrophe,  l  which  robbed 
the  world  of  this  strange  and  great  spirit,'  and  which 
secretly  tempts  men  to  superstitious  feelings,  even 
whilst  they  are  denying  them  :  — 

4  Everybody  knows  that,  on  the  arrival  of  Leigh 
Hunt  in  Italy,  Shelley  hastened  to  meet  him.  During 
all  the  time  he  spent  in  Leghorn,  he  was  in  brilliant 
spirits  —  to  him  ever  a  sure  prognostic  of  coming  evil.1 
[That  is,  in  the  Scottish  phrase^lic  was  fey.]  '  On  his 
return  to  his  home  and  family,  his  skiff  was  overtaken 
by  a  fearful  hurricane,  and  all  on  board  perished.  To 


PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 


a  gentleman,  who,  at  the  t 

veying  tlie  sea,  the  scene  of  his  ctrOwrring    fgiiffned  a 
very  striking  appearance.    A  great  many  vessels  were 
visible,  and   among  them  one   small  skiff,   which  at 
tracted  his  particular  attention.     Suddenly  a  dreadful 
storm,  attended  by  thunder  and  columns  of  lightning, 
swept  over  the  sea  and  eclipsed  the  prospect.     When 
it  had  passed,  he  looked  again.     The  larger  vessels 
were  all   safe,  riding  upon  the  swell  ;  the  skiff  only 
had  gone  down  for  ever.     And  in  that  skiff  was  Alas.-; 
tor  !  7     Here  he  had  met  his  fate.      Wert  thou,  ohl 
religious  sea,  only  avenging  on  his  head  the  cause  of! 
thy  denied  and   insulted   Deity?     Were  ye,  ye  ele-^ 
ments,  in  your  courses,  commissioned  to  destroy  him  ? 
Ah  !  there  is  no  reply.     The  surge  is  silent  ;  the  ele 
ments  have  no  voice.   In  the  eternal  councils  the  secret 
is  hid  of  the  reason  of  the  man's  death.     And  there 
too,  rests  the  still  more  tremendous  secret  of  the  char 
acter  of  his  destiny.'8 

The  last  remark  possibly  pursues  the  scrutiny  too 
far;  and,  conscious  that  it  tends  beyond  the  limits  of 
charity,  Mr.  Gilfillan  recalls  himself  from  the  attempt 
to  fathom  the  unfathomable.  But  undoubtedly  the 
temptation  is  great,  in  minds  the  least  superstitious,  to 
read  a  significance,  and  a  silent  personality  in  such  a 
fate  applied  to  such  a  defier  of  the  Christian  heavens. 
As  a  shepherd  by  his  dog  fetches  out  one  of  his  flock 
from  amongst  five  hundred,  so  did  the  holy  hurricane 
seem  to  fetch  out  from  the  multitude  of  sails  that  one 
which  carried  him  that  hated  the  hopes  of  the  world  ; 
and  the  sea,  which  swelled  and  ran  down  within  an 
hour,  was  present  at  the  audit.  We  are  reminded 


64  PERCY    BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

forcibly  of  the  sublime  storm  in  the  wilderness,  (as 
given  in  the  fourth  book  of  '  Paradise  Regained,') 
and  the  remark  upon  it  made  by  the  mysterious 
tempter  — 

'  This  tempest  at  this  desert  most  was  bent, 
Of  men  at  thee.' 

Undoubtedly,  I  do  not  understand  Mr.  Gilfillan,  more 
than  myself,  to  read  a  'judgment'  in  this  catastrophe. 
But  there  is  a  solemn  appeal  to  the  thoughtful,  in 
a  death  of  so  much  terrific  grandeur  following  upon, 
defiances  of  such  unparalleled  audacity.  ^Eschylus 
acknowledged  the  same  sense  of  mysterious  awe,  and 
all  antiquity  acknowledged  it,  in  the  story  of  Amphia- 
raus.9 

Shelley,  it  must  be  remembered,  carried  his  irre- 
ligion  to  a  point  beyond  all  others.  Of  the  darkest 
beings  we  are  told,  that  they  '  believe  and  tremble  : ' 
but  Shelley  believed  and  hated  ;  and  his  defiances 
were  meant  to  show  that  he  did  not  tremble.  Yet, 
has  he  not  the  excuse  of  something  like  monomania 
upon  this  subject?  1  firmly  believe  it.  But  a  super 
stition,  old  as  the  world,  clings  to  the  notion,  that 
words  of  deep  meaning,  uttered  even  by  lunatics  or  by 
idiots,  execute  themselves;  and  that  also,  when  uttered 
in  presumption,  they  bring  round  their  own  retributive 
chastisements. 

On  the  other  hand,  however  shocked  at  Shelley's"^ 
obstinate  revolt  from  all  religious  sympathies  with  his 
fellow-men,  no  man  is  entitled  to  deny  the  admirable 
qualities  of  his  moral  nature,  which  were  as  striking 
as  his  genius.     Many  people  remarked  something  se- 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  65 

raphic  in  the  expression  of  his  features  ;  and  something 
seraphic  there  was  in  his  nature.  No  man  was  better 
qualified  to  have  loved  Christianity  ;  and  to  no  man, 
resting  under  the  shadow  of  that  one  darkness,  would 
Christianity  have  said  more  gladly  —  tails  cum  sis, 
utinam  noster  esses!  Shelley  would,  from  his  earliest 
manhood,  have  sacrificed  all  that  he  possessed  to  any 
comprehensive  purpose  of  good  for  the  race  of  man. 
He  dismissed  all  injuries  and  insults  from  his  memory. 
He  was  the  sincerest  and  the  most  truthful  of  human 
creatures.  He  was  also  the  purest.  If  he  denounced 
marriage  as  a  vicious  institution,  that  was  but  another 
phasis  of  the  partial  lunacy  which  affected  him  :  for  to 
no  man  were  purity  and  fidelity  more  essential  ele 
ments  in  his  idea  of  real  love.  I  agree,  therefore, 
heartily  with  Mr.  Gilfillan,  in  protesting  against  the 
thoughtless  assertion  of  some  writer  in  The  Edinburgh 
Review  —  that  Shelley  at  all  selected  the  story  of  his 
4  Cenci '  on  account  of  its  horrors,  or  that  he  has  found 
pleasure  in  dwelling  on  those  horrors.  So  far  from  it, 
he  has  retreated  so  entirely  from  the  most  shocking 
feature  of  the  story,  viz.,  the  incestuous  violence  of 
Cenci  the  father,  as  actually  to  leave  it  doubtful 
whether  the  murder  were  in  punishment  of  the  last 
outrage  committed,  or  in  repulsion  of  a  menace  con 
tinually  repeated.  The  true  motive  of  the  selection  of 
such  a  story  was  —  not  its  darkness,  but  (as  Mr.  Gil 
fillan,  with  so  much  penetration,  perceives,)  the  light 
which  fights  with  the  darkness:  Shelley  found  the 
whole  attraction  of  this  dreadful  talc  in  the  angelic 
nature  of  Beatrice,  as  revealed  in  the  portrait  of  her 
by  Guido.  Everybody  who  has  read  with  under- 
5 


66  PERCY   BYSSHE    SHELLEY. 

standing  the  '  Wallensteln '  of  Schiller,  is  aware  of  the 
repose  and  the  divine  relief  arising  upon  a  background 
of  so  much  darkness,  such  a  tumult  of  ruffians,  bloody 
intriguers,  and  assassins,  from  the  situation  of  the  two 
lovers,  Max.  Piccolomini  and  the  princess  Thekla,  both 
yearning  so  profoundly  after  peace,  both  so  noble,  both 
so  young,  and  both  destined  to  be  so  unhappy.  The 
same  fine  relief,  the  same  light  shining  in  darkness, 
arises  here  from  the  touching  beauty  of  Beatrice,  from 
her  noble  aspirations  after  deliverance,  from  the  re 
morse  which  reaches  her  in  the  midst  of  real  inno 
cence,  from  her  meekness,  and  from  the  agitation  of 
her  inexpressible  affliction.  Even  the  murder,  even 
the  parricide,  though  proceeding  from  herself,  do  but 
deepen  that  background  of  darkness,  which  throws 
into  fuller  revelation  the  glory  of  that  suffering  face 
immortalized  by  Guido. 

Something  of  a  similar  effect  arises  to  myself  when 
reviewing  the  general  abstract  of  Shelley's  life,  —  so 
brief,  so  full  of  agitation,  so  full  of  strife.  When  one 
thinks  of  the  early  misery  which  he  suffered,  and  of 
the  insolent  infidelity  which,  being  yet  so  young,  he 
wooed  with  a  lover's  passion,  then  the  darkness  of 
midnight  begins  to  form  a  deep,  impenetrable  back 
ground,  upon  which  the  phantasmagoria  of  all  that  is 
to  come  may  arrange  itself  in  troubled  phosphoric 
streams,  and  in  sweeping  processions  of  wo.  Yet, 
again,  when  one  recurs  to  his  gracious  nature,  his  fear 
lessness,  his  truth,  his  purity  from  all  fieshliness  of 
appetite,  his  freedom  from  vanity,  his  diffusive  love 
and  tenderness,  —  suddenly  out  of  the  darkness  reveals 
itself  a  morning  of  May,  forests  and  thickets  of  roses 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  67 

advance  to  the  foreground,  from  the  midst  of  them 
looks  out  'the  eternal 10  child,'  cleansed  from  his  sor 
row,  radiant  with  joy,  having  power  given  him  to  forget 
the  misery  which  he  suffered,  power  given  him  to  for 
get  the  misery  which  he  caused,  and  leaning  with  his 
heart  upon  that  dove-like  faith  against  which  his  erring 
intellect  had  rebelled. 


NOTES. 


NOTE  1.     Page  40. 

'  TRANSACT  : '  —  this  word,  used  in  this  Roman  sense,  illus 
trates  the  particular  mode  of  Milton's  liberties  with  the  Eng 
lish  language :  liberties  which  have  never  yet  been  properly 
examined,  collated,  numbered,  or  appreciated.  In  the  Roman 
law,  transigere  expressed  the  case,  where  each  of  two  conflict 
ing  parties  conceded  something  of  what  originally  he  had 
claimed  as  the  rigor  of  his  right ;  and  transactio  was  the 
technical  name  for  a  legal  compromise.  Milton  has  here 
introduced  no  new  word  into  the  English  language,  but  has 
given  a  new  and  more  learned  sense  to  an  old  one.  Some 
times,  it  is  true,  as  in  the  word  sensuous,  he  introduces  a  pure 
coinage  of  his  own,  and  a  very  useful  coinage  :  but  generally 
to  re-endow  an  old  foundation  is  the  extent  of  his  innovations. 
M.  de  Tocqueville  is  therefore  likely  to  be  found  wrong  in 
saying,  that  '  Milton  alone  introduced  more  than  six  hundred 
words  into  the  English  language,  almost  all  derived  from  the 
Latin,  the  Greek,  or  the  Hebrew.'  The  passage  occurs  in  the 
16th  chapter  of  his  '  Democracy  in  America,'  Part  II.,  where 
M.  de  Tocqueville  is  discussing  the  separate  agencies  through 
which  democratic  life  on  the  one  hand,  or  aristocratic  on  the 
other,  affects  the  changes  of  language.  His  English  trans 
lator,  Mr.  H.  Reeve,  an  able  and  philosophic  annotator, 


70  PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

justly  views  this  bold  assertion  as   'startling  and  probably 
erroneous.' 

NOTE  2.    Page  41. 

Since  the  boyish  period  in  which  these  redressing  correc 
tions  occurred  to  me,  I  have  seen  some  reason  (upon  consider 
ing  the  oriental  practice  of  placing  live  coals  in  a  pan  upon 
the  head,  and  its  meaning  as  still  in  use  amongst  the  Turks) 
to  alter  the  whole  interpretation  of  the  passage.  It  would  too 
much  interrupt  the  tenor  of  the  subject  to  explain  this  at 
length:  but,  if  right,  it  would  equally  harmonize  with  the 
spirit  of  Christian  morals. 

NOTE  3.    Page  51. 

1  Family  : '  i.  e.,  The  gens  in  the  Roman  sense,  or  collective 
house.  Shelley's  own  immediate  branch  of  the  house  did  not, 
in  a  legal  sense,  represent  the  family  of  Penshurst,  because 
the  rights  of  the  lineal  descent  had  settled  upon  another 
branch.  But  his  branch  had  a  collateral  participation  in  the 
glory  of  the  Sidney  name,  and  might,  by  accidents  possible 
enough,  have  come  to  be  its  sole  representative. 

NOTE  4.     Page  51. 

'  Of  Custom  : '  —  This  alludes  to  a  theory  of  Shelley's,  on  the 
subject  of  marriage  as  a  vicious  institution,  and  an  attempt  to 
realize  his  theory  by  way  of  public  example ;  which  attempt 
there  is  no  use  in  noticing  more  particularly,  as  it  was  subse 
quently  abandoned.  Originally  he  had  derived  his  theory 
from  the  writings  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  the  mother  of  his 
second  wife,  whose  birth  in  fact  had  cost  that  mother  her  life. 
But  by  the  year  1812,  (the  year  following  his  first  marriage,) 
he  had  so  fortified,  from  other  quarters,  his  previous  opinions 
upon  the  wickedness  of  all  nuptial  ties  consecrated  by  law  or 
by  the  church,  that  he  apologized  to  his  friends  for  having 
submitted  to  the  marriage  ceremony  as  for  an  offence  j  but 
an  offence,  he  pleaded,  rendered  necessary  by  the  vicious  con 
stitution  of  society,  for  the  comfort  of  his  female  partner. 


NOTES.  71 

NOTE  5.     Page  56. 

'  Two  counties  : '  —  the  frontier  line  between  Westmoreland 
and  Cumberland,  traverse  obliquely  the  Lake  of  Ulleswater,  so 
that  the  banks  on  both  sides  lie  partly  in  both  counties. 

NOTE  6.    Page  58. 

'  At  that  time ! f  —  the  reader  will  say,  who  happens  to  be 
aware  of  the  mighty  barriers  which  engirdle  Grasmere,  Fair- 
field,  Arthur's  Chair,  Seat  Sandal,  Steil  Fell,  &c.  (the  lowest 
above  two  thousand,  the  higher  above  three  thousand  feet 
high,)  —  'what  then?  do  the  mountains  change,  and  the 
mountain  tarns?'  Perhaps  not:  but,  if  they  do  not  change 
in  substance  or  in  form,  they  'change  countenance'  when 
they  are  disfigured  from  below.  One  cotton-mill,  planted  by 
the  side  of  a  torrent,  disenchants  the  scene,  and  banishes  the 
ideal  beauty  even  in  the  case  where  it  leaves  the  physical 
beauty  untouched  :  a  truth  which,  many  years  ago,  I  saw 
illustrated  in  the  little  hamlet  of  Church  Coniston.  But  is 
there  any  cotton-mill  in  Grasmere  ?  Not  that  I  have  heard  : 
But  if  no  water  has  been  filched  away  from  Grasmere,  there 
is  one  water  too  much  which  has  crept  lately  into  that  loveliest 
of  mountain  chambers ;  and  that  is  the  '  water-cure,'  which 
has  built  unto  itself  a  sort  of  residence  in  that  vale  j  whether 
a  rustic  nest,  or  a  lordly  palace,  I  do  not  know.  Meantime, 
in  honesty  it  must  be  owned,  that  many  years  ago  the  vale 
was  half  ruined  by  an  insane  substruction  carried  along  the 
eastern  margin  of  the  lake  as  a  basis  for  a  mail-coach  road. 
This  infernal  mass  of  solid  masonry  swept  away  the  loveliest 
of  sylvan  recesses,  and  the  most  absolutely  charmed  against 
intrusive  foot  or  angry  echoes.  It  did  worse:  it  swept  away 
the  stateliest  of  Flora's  daughters,  and  swept  away,  at  the 
same  time,  the  birth-place  of  a  well  known  verse,  describing 
that  stately  plant,  which  is  perhaps  (as  a  separate  line)  the 
most  exquisite  that  the  poetry  of  earth  can  show.  The  plant 
was  the  Osmunda  regalis  ; 

1  Plant  lovelier  in  its  own  recess 
Than  Grecian  Naiad  seen  at  earliest  dawn 


72  PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY. 

Tending  her  fount,  or  lady  of  the  lake 
Sole-silting  by  the  shores  of  old  romance.* 

It  is  this  last  line  and  a  half  which  some  have  held  to  ascend 
in  beauty  as  much  beyond  any  single  line  known  to  literature, 
as  the  Osmunda  ascends  in  luxury  of  splendor  above  other 
ferns.  I  have  restored  the  original  word  lake,  which  the  poet 
himself  under  an  erroneous  impression  had  dismissed  for 
mere.  But  the  line  rests  no  longer  on  an  earthly  reality  —  the 
recess,  which  suggested  it,  is  gone  :  the  Osmunda  has  fled  ; 
and  a  vile  causeway,  such  as  Sin  and  Death  build  in  Milton 
over  Chaos,  fastening  it  with  '  asphaltic  slime'  and  'pins  of 
adamant,'  having  long  displaced  the  loveliest  chapel  (as  I  may 
call  it)  in  the  whole  cathedral  of  Grasmere,  I  have  since  con 
sidered  Grasmere  itself  a  ruin  of  its  former  self. 


NOTE  7.     Page  63. 

( Alastor,'  i.  e.  Shelley.  Mr.  Gilfillan  names  him  thus  from 
the  designation,  self-assumed  by  Shelley,  in  one  of  the  least 
intelligible  amongst  his  poems. 

NOTE  8.     Page  63. 

The  immediate  cause  of  the  catastrophe  was  supposed  to  be 
this  :  —  Shelley's  boat  had  reached  a  distance  of  four  miles 
from  the  shore,  when  the  storm  suddenly  arose,  and  the  wind 
suddenly  shifted  :  '  from  excessive  smoothness,'  says  Mr.  Tre- 
lawney,  all  at  once  the  sea  was  'foaming,  breaking,  and 
getting  up  into  a  very  heavy  swell.'  After  one  hour  the  swell 
went  down  ;  and  towards  evening  it  was  almost  a  calm.  The 
circumstances  were  all  adverse  :  the  gale,  the  current  setting 
into  the  gulf,  the  instantaneous  change  of  wind,  acting  upon 
an  undecked  boat,  having  all  the  sheets  fast,  overladen,  and 
no  expert  hands  on  board  but  one,  made  the  foundering  as 
sudden  as  it  was  inevitable.  The  boat  is  supposed  to  have 
filled  to  leeward,  and  (carrying  two  tons  of  ballast)  to  have 
gone  down  like  a  shot.  A  book  found  in  the  pocket  of  Shelley, 
and  the  unaltered  state  of  the  dress  on  all  the  corpses  when 


NOTES.  73 

washed  on  shore,  sufficiently  indicated  that  not  a  moment's 
preparation  for  meeting  the  danger  had  been  possible. 

NOTE  9.     Page  64. 
See  «  The  Seven  against  Thebes '  of  JEschylus. 

NOTE  10.     Page  67. 

'  The  eternal  child  : '  —  this  beautiful  expression,  so  true  in  its 
application  to  Shelley,  I  borrow  from  Mr.  Gilfillan  ;  and  I  am 
tempted  to  add  the  rest  of  his  eloquent  parallel  between  Shelley 
and  Lord  Byron,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  their  external  appear 
ance  :  —  <  In  the  forehead  and  head  of  Byron  there  is  more 
massive  power  and  breadth  :  Shelley's  has  a  smooth,  arched, 
spiritual  expression ;  wrinkle  there  seems  none  on  his  brow  ; 
it  is  as  if  perpetual  youth  had  there  dropped  its  freshness. 
Byron's  eye  seems  the  focus  of  pride  and  lust  ;  Shelley's  is 
mild,  pensive,  fixed  on  you,  but  seeing  you  through  the  mist  of 
^his  own  idealism.  Defiance  curls  on  Byron's  nostril,  and  sen 
suality  steeps  his  full  large  lips  :  the  lower  features  of  Shelley's 
face  are  frail,  feminine,  flexible.  Byron's  head  is  turned  up 
wards  ;  as  if,  having  risen  proudly  above  his  contemporaries, 
he  were  daring  to  claim  kindred,  or  to  demand  a  contest,  with 
a  superior  order  of  beings  :  Shelley's  is  half  bent,  in  reverence 
and  humility,  before  some  vast  vision  seen  by  his  own  eye 
alone.  Misery  erect,  and  striving  to  cover  its  retreat  under 
an  aspect  of  contemptuous  fury,  is  the  permanent  and  per 
vading  expression  of  Byron's  countenance  :  — sorrow,  softened 
and  shaded  away  by  hope  and  habit,  lies  like  a  "  holier  day  " 
of  still  moonshine  upon  that  of  Shelley.  In  the  portrait  of 
Byron,  taken  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  you  see  the  unnatural 
age  of  premature  passion  ;  his  hair  is  young,  his  dress  is 
youthful ;  but  his  face  is  old  :  —  in  Shelley  you  see  the  eternal 
child,  none  the  less  that  his  hair  is  gray,  and  that  "  sorrow 
seems  half  his  immortality."  ' 


JOHN   KEATS. 


MR.  GILFILLAN  *  introduces  this  section  with  a  dis 
cussion  upon  the  constitutional  peculiarities  ascribed 
to  men  of  genius  ;  such  as  nervousness  of  tempera 
ment,  idleness,  vanity,  irritability,  and  other  disagree 
able  tendencies  ending  in  ty  or  in  ness ;  one  of  the  ties 
being  4  poverty ;'  which  disease  is  at  least  not  amongst 
those  morbidly  cherished  by  the  patients.  All  that 
can  be  asked  from  the  most  penitent  man  of  genius 
is,  that  he  should  humbly  confess  his  own  besetting 
infirmities,  and  endeavor  to  hate  them;  and,  as 
respects  this  one  infirmity  at  least,  I  never  heard  of 
any  man  (however  eccentric  in  genius)  who  did  other 
wise.  But  what  special  relation  has  such  a  preface 
to  Keats  ?  His  whole  article  occupies  twelve  pages  ; 
and  six  of  these  are  allotted  to  this  preliminary  dis 
cussion,  which  perhaps  equally  concerns  every  other 
man  in  the  household  of  literature.  Mr.  Gilfillan 
seems  to  have  been  acting  here  on  celebrated  prece 
dents.  The  iOmnes  homines  qui  sese  s.tudent  prccstare 
cateris  animalibus'  has  long  been  'smoked'  by  a 
wicked  posterity  as  an  old  hack  of  Sallust's  fitted  on 
with  paste  and  scissors  to  the  Catilinarian  conspiracy. 

*  '  Gallery  of  Literary  Portraits.' 


76  JOHN    KEATS. 

Cicero  candidly  admits  that  he  kept  in  his  writing-desk 
an  assortment  of  movable  prefaces,  beautifully  fitted 
(by  means  of  avoiding  all  questions  but  '  the  general 
question ')  for  parading,  en  grand  costume^  before  any 
conceivable  book.  And  Coleridge,  in  his  early  days,,- 
used  the  image  of  a  man's  '  sleeping  under  a  man-.''^ 
chineel  tree,'  alternately  with  the  case  of  Alexander's  -& 
killing  his  friend  Clitus,  as  resources  for  illustration 
which  Providence  had  bountifully  made  inexnaustible 
in  their  applications.  No  emergency  could  by  pos 
sibility  arise  to  puzzle  the  poet,  or  the  orator,  but  one 
of  these  similes  (please  Heaven  !)  should  be  made  to 
meet  it.  So  long  as  the  manchinecl  continued  to 
blister  with  poisonous  dews  those  who  confided  in  its 
shelter,  so  long  as  Niebuhr  should  kindly  forbear  to 
prove  that  Alexander  of  Macedon  was  a  hoax,  and 
his  friend  Clitus  a  myth,  so  long  was  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge  fixed  and  obdurate  in  his  determination  that 
one  or  other  of  these  images  should  come  upon  duty 
whenever,  as  a  youthful  writer,  he  found  himself  on 
the  brink  of  insolvency. 

But  it  is  less  the  generality  of  this  preface,  or  even 
its  disproportion,  which  fixes  the  eye,  than  the  ques- 
tionableness  of  its  particular  statements.  In  that  part 
which  reviews  the  idleness  of  authors,  Horace  is  given 
up  as  too  notoriously  indolent ;  the  thing,  it  seems, 
is  past  denying ;  but  4  not  so  Lucretius.'  Indeed  ! 
and  how  shall  this  be  brought  to  proof?  Perhaps  the 
reader  has  heard  of  that  barbarian  prince,  who  sent 
to  Europe  for  a  large  map  of  the  world  accompanied 
by  the  best  of  English  razors ;  and  the  clever  use 
which  he  made  of  his  importation  was,  that,  first 
cutting  out  with  exquisite  accuracy  the  whole  ring- 


JOHN    KEATS.  77 

fence  of  his  own  dominions,  and  then  doing  the  same 
office,  with  the  same  equity,  (barbarous  or  barbcr-ous,) 
for  the  dominions  of  a  hostile  neighbor,  next  he  pro 
ceeded  to  weigh  off  the  rival  segments  against  each 
other  in  a  pair  of  gold  scales  ;  after  which,  of  course, 
he  arrived  at  a  satisfactory  algebraic  equation  between 
himself  and  his  enemy.  Now,  upon  this  principle 
of  comparison,  if  we  should  take  any  common  edition 
(as  the  Dclphin  or  the  Variorum)  of  Horace  and 
Lucretius,  strictly  shaving  away  all  notes,  prefaces, 
editorial  absurdities,  &c.,  all  i  flotsom '  and  'jetsom' 
that  may  have  gathered  like  barnacles  about  the  two 
weather-beaten  hulks ;  in  that  case  we  should  have 
the  two  old  files  undressed,  and  in  puris  naluralibus ; 
they  would  be  prepared  for  being  weighed ;  and, 
going  to  the  nearest  grocer's,  we  might  then  settle  the 
point  at  once,  as  to  which  of  the  two  had  been  the 
idler  man.  I  back  Horace  for  my  part ;  and  it  is  my 
private  opinion  that,  in  the  case  of  a  quarto  edition, 
the  grocer  would  have  to  throw  at  least  a  two  ounce 
weight  into  the  scale  of  Lucretius,  before  he  could  be 
made  to  draw  against  the  other.  Yet,  after  all,  this 
would  only  be  a  collation  of  quantity  against  quantity; 
whilst,  upon  a  second  collation  of  quality  against  qual 
ity,  (I  do  not  mean  quality  as  regards  the  final  merit 
of  the  composition,  but  quality  as  regards  the  difficul 
ties  in  the  process  of  composition,)  the  difference  in 
amount  of  labor  would  appear  to  be  as  between  the 
weaving  of  a  blanket  and  the  weaving  of  an  exquisite 
cambric.  The  curiosa  felicitas  of  Horace  in  his  lyric 
compositions,  the  elaborate  delicacy  of  workmanship 
in  his  thoughts  and  in  his  style,  argue  a  scale  of  labor 


78  JOHN   KEATS. 

that,  as  against  any  equal  number  of  lines  in  Lucretius, 
would  measure  itself  by  months  against  days.  There 
are  single  odes  in  Horace  that  must  have  cost  him  a 
six  weeks'  seclusion  from  the  wickedness  of  Rome. 
Do  I  then  question  the  extraordinary  power  of  Lucre 
tius  ?  On  the  contrary,  I  admire  him  as  the  first  of 
demoniacs  ;  the  frenzy  of  an  earth-born  or  a  hell-born 
inspiration  ;  divinity  of  stormy  music  sweeping  round 
us  in  eddies,  in  order  to  prove  that  for  us  there  could 
be  nothing  divine ;  the  grandeur  of  a  prophet's  voice 
rising  in  angry  gusts,  by  way  of  convincing  us  that 
prophets  were  swindlers ;  oracular  scorn  of  oracles ; 
frantic  efforts,  such  as  might  seem  reasonable  in  one 
who  was  scaling  the  heavens,  for  the  purpose  of 
degrading  all  things,  making  man  to  be  the  most 
abject  of  necessities  as  regarded  his  causes,  to  be  the 
blindest  of  accidents  as  regarded  his  expectations; 
these  fierce  antinomies  expose  a  mode  of  insanity,  but 
of  an  insanity  affecting  $  sublime  intellect.1  One 
would  suppose  him  partially  mad  by  the  savagery  of 
his  headlong  manner.  And  most'  people  who  read 
Lucretius  at  all,  are  aware  of  the  traditional  story 
current  in  Rome,  that  he  did  actually  write  in  a  deli 
rious  state ;  not  under  any  figurative  disturbance  of 
brain,  but  under  a  real  physical  disturbance  caused  by 
philters  administered  to  him  without  his  own  knowl 
edge.  But  this  kind  of  supernatural  afflatus  did  not 
deliver  into  words  and  metre  by  lingering  oscillations, 
and  through  processes  of  self-correction :  it  threw 
itself  forward,  and  precipitated  its  own  utterance,  with 
the  hurrying  and  bounding  of  a  cataract.  It  was  an 
oestrum,  a  rapture,  the  bounding  of  a  mcenad,  by 


JOHN    KEATS.  79 

which  the  muse  of  Lucretius  lived  and  moved.  So 
much  is  known  by  the  impression  about  him  current 
among  his  contemporaries :  so  much  is  evident  in  the 
characteristic  manner  of  his  poem,  if  all  anecdotes 
had  perished.  And,  upon  the  whole,  let  the  propor 
tions  of  power  between  Horace  and  Lucretius  be  what 
they  may,  the  proportions  of  labor  are  absolutely 
incommensurable :  in  Horace  the  labor  was  directly 
as  the  power,  in  Lucretius  inversely  as  the  power. 
Whatsoever  in  Horace  was  best  —  had  been  obtained 
by  most  labor;  whatsoever  in  Lucretius  was  best  —  by 
least.  In  Horace,  the  exquisite  skill  co-operated  with 
the  exquisite  nature  ;  in  Lucretius,  the  powerful  nature 
disdained  the  skill,  which,  indeed,  would  not  have 
been  applicable  to  his  theme,  or  to  his  treatment  of 
it,  and  triumphed  by  means  of  mere  precipitation  of 
volume,  and  of  headlong  fury. 

Another  paradox  of  Mr.  Gilfillan's,  under  this  head, 
is,  that  he  classes  Dr.  Johnson  as  indolent ;  and  it  is 
the  more  startling,  because  he  does  not  utter  it  as  a 
careless  opinion  upon  which  he  might  have  been 
thrown  by  inconsideration,  but  as  a  concession  extorted 
from  him  reluctantly :  he  had  sought  to  evade  it,  but 
could  not.  Now,  that  Dr.  Johnson  had  a  morbid 
predisposition  to  decline  labor  from  his  scrofulous 
habit  of  body,2  is  probable.  The  question  for  us, 
however,  is,  not  what  nature  prompted  him  to  do,  but 
what  he  did.  If  he  had  an  extra  difficulty  to  fight 
with  in  attempting  to  labor,  the  more  was  his  merit 
in  the  known  result,  that  he  did  fight  with  that  diffi 
culty,  and  that  he  conquered  it.  This  is  undeniable. 
And  the  attempt  to  deny  it  presents  itself  in  a  comic 


80  JOHN    KEATS. 

shape,  when  one  imagines  some  ancient  shelf  in  a 
library,  that  has  groaned  for  nearly  a  century  under 
the  weight  of  the  doctor's  works,  demanding,  '  How 
say  you  ?  Is  this  Sam  Johnson,  whose  Dictionary 
alone  is  a  load  for  a  camel,  one  of  those  authors 
whom  you  call  idle  ?  Then  Heaven  preserve  us  poor 
oppressed  book-shelves  from  such  as  you  will  consider 
active.'  George  III.,  in  a  compliment  as  happily 
turned  as  if  it  had  proceeded  from  Louis  XIV., 
expressed  his  opinion  upon  this  question  of  the  doctor's 
industry  by  saying,  that  he  also  should  join  in  thinking 
Johnson  too  voluminous  a  contributor  to  literature, 
were  it  not  for  the  extraordinary  merit  of  his  contri 
butions.  Now  it  would  be  an  odd  way  of  turning  the 
royal  praise  into  a  reproach,  if  we  should  say ;  '  Sam, 
had  you  been  a  pretty  good  writer,  we,  your  country 
men,  should  have  held  you  to  be  also  an  industrious 
writer :  but,  because  you  are  a  very  good  writer, 
therefore  we  pronounce  you  a  lazy  vagabond.' 

Upon  other  points  in  this  discussion  there  is  some 
room  to  differ  from  Mr.  Gilfillan.  For  instance,  with 
respect  to  the  question  of  the  comparative  happiness 
enjoyed  by  men  of  genius,  it  is  not  necessary  to  argue, 
nor  does  it  seem  possible  to  prove,  even  in  the  case  of 
any  one  individual  poet,  that,  on  the  whole,  lie  was 
either  more  happy  or  less  happy  than  the  average 
mass  of  his  fellow-men  :  far  less  could  this  be  argued 
as  to  the  whole  class  of  poets.  What  seems  really 
open  to  proof,  is,  that  men  of  genius  have  a  larger 
capacity  of  happiness,  which  capacity,  both  from 
within  and  from  without,  may  be  defeated  in  ten  thou 
sand  ways.  This  seems  involved  in  the  very  word 


JOHN    KEATS.  81 

genius.  For,  after  all  the  pretended  and  hollow 
attempts  to  distinguish  genius  from  talent,  I  shall 
continue  to  think  (what  heretofore  I  have  explained) 
that  no  distinction  in  the  case  is  tenable  for  a  moment 
but  this  :  viz.  that  genius  is  that  mode  of  intellectual 
power  which  moves  in  alliance  with  the  genial  nature, 
i.  e.  with  the  capacities  of  pleasure  and  pain  ;  whereas 
talent  has  no  vestige  of  such  an  alliance,  and  is  per 
fectly  independent  of  all  human  sensibilities.  Con 
sequently,  genius  is  a  voice  or  breathing  that  represents 
the  total  nature  of  man  ;  whilst,  on  the  contrary,  talent 
represents  only  a  single  function  of  that  nature. 
Genius  is  the  language  which  interprets  the  synthesis 
of  the  human  spirit  with  the  human  intellect,  each 
acting  through  the  other ;  whilst  talent  speaks  only 
from  the  insulated  intellect.  And  hence  also  it  is 
that,  besides  its  relation  to  suffering  and  enjoyment, 
genius  always  implies  a  deeper  relation  to  virtue  and 
vice :  whereas  talent  has  no  shadow  of  a  relation  to 
moral  qualities,  any  more  than  it  has  to  vital  sensibili 
ties.  A  man  of  the  highest  talent  is  often  obtuse  and 
below  the  ordinary  standard  of  men  in  his  feelings  ; 
but  no  man  of  genius  can  unyoke  himself  from  the 
society  of  moral  perceptions  that  are  brighter,  and 
sensibilities  that  are  more  tremulous,  than  those  of 
men  in  general. 

As  to  the  examples3  by  which  Mr.  Gilfillan  supports 
his  prevailing  views,  they  will  be  construed  by  any 
ten  thousand  men  in  ten  thousand  separate  modes. 
The  objections  are  so  endless,  that  it  would  be  abusing 
the  reader's  time  to  urge  them  ;  especially  as  every 
man  of  the  ten  thousand  will  be  wrong,  and  will  also 
6 


82  JOHN    KEATS. 

be  right,  in  all  varieties  of  proportion.  Two  only  it 
may  be  useful  to  notice  as  examples,  involving  some 
degree  of  error,  viz.  Addison  and  Homer.  As  to  the 
first,  the  error,  if  an  error,  is  one  of  fact  only.  Lord 
Byron  had  said  of  Addison,  that  he  '  died  drunk.' 
This  seems  to  Mr.  Gilfillan  a  'horrible  statement;' 
for  which  he  supposes  that  no  authority  can  exist  but 
'  a  rumor  circulated  by  an  inveterate  gossip,'  meaning 
Horace  Walpole.  But  gossips  usually  go  upon  some 
foundation,  broad  or  narrow ;  and,  until  the  rumor  had 
been  authentically  put  down,  Mr.  Gilfillan  should  not 
have  pronounced  it  a  4  malignant  calumny.'  Me  this 
story  caused  to  laugh  exceedingly  ;  not  at  Addison, 
whose  fine  genius  extorts  pity  and  tenderness  towards 
his  infirmities  ;  but  at  the  characteristic  misanthropy  of 
Lord  Byron,  who  chuckles  as  he  would  do  over  a  glass 
of  nectar,  on  this  opportunity  for  confronting  the  old 
solemn  legend  about  Addison's  sending  for  his  step 
son,  Lord  Warwick,  to  witness  the  peaceful  death  of 
a  Christian,  with  so  rich  a  story  as  this,  that  he,  the 
said  Christian,  '  died  drunk.'  Supposing  that  he  did, 
the  mere  physical  fact  of  inebriation,  in  a  stage  of 
debility  where  so  small  an  excess  of  stimulating 
liquor  (though  given  medicinally)  sometimes  causes 
such  an  appearance,  would  not  infer  the  moral  blame 
of  drunkenness;  and  if  such  a  thing  were  ever  said 
by  any  person  present  at  the  bed-side,  I  should  feel 
next  to  certain  that  it  was  said  in  that  spirit  of 
exaggeration  to  which  most  men  are  tempted  by 
circumstances  unusually  fitted  to  impress  a  startling 
picturesqueness  upon  the  statement.  But,  without 
insisting  on  Lord  Byron's  way  of  putting  the  case, 


JOHN    KEATS.  83 

I  believe  it  is  generally  understood  that,  latterly, 
Addison  gave  way  to  habits  of  intemperance.  He 
suffered,  not  only  from  his  wife's  dissatisfied  temper, 
but  also  (and  probably  much  more)  from  ennui.  He 
did  not  walk  one  mile  a  day,  and  he  ought  to  have 
walked  ten.  Dyspepsy  was,  no  doubt,  the  true  ground 
of  his  unhappiness  :  and  he  had  nothing  to  hope  for. 
To  remedy  these  evils,  I  have  always  understood  that 
every  day  (and  especially  towards  night)  he  drank  too 
much  of  that  French  liquor,  which,  calling  itself  water 
of  life,  nine  times  in  ten  proves  the  water  of  death. 
He  lived  latterly  at  Kensington,  viz.  in  Holland 
House,  the  well-known  residence  of  the  late  Lord 
Holland  ;  and  the  tradition  attached  to  the  gallery  in 
that  house,  is,  that  duly  as  the  sun  drew  near  to 
setting,  on  two  tables,  one  at  each  end  of  the  long 
amlulachrum,  the  right  honorable  Joseph  placed,  or 
caused  to  be  placed,  two  tumblers  of  brandy,  some 
what  diluted  with  water ;  and  those,  the  said  vessels, 
then  and  there  did  alternately  to  the  lips  of  him,  the 
aforesaid  Joseph,  diligently  apply,  walking  to  and  fro 
during  the  process  of  exhaustion,  and  dividing  his 
attention  between  the  two  poles,  arctic  and  antartic, 
of  his  evening  diaulos,  with  the  impartiality  to  be 
expected  from  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council.  How 
often  the  two  l  blessed  bears,'  northern  and  southern, 
were  replenished,  entered  into  no  affidavit  that  ever 
reached  me.  But  so  much  I  have  always  understood, 
that  in  the  gallery  of  Holland  House,  the  ex-secretary 
of  state  caught  a  decided  hiccup,  which  never  after 
wards  subsided.  In  all  this  there  would  have  been 
little  to  shock  people,  had  it  not  been  for  the  syco- 


84  JOHN    KEATS. 

phancy  which  ascribed  to  Addison  a  religious  reputa 
tion  such  as  he  neither  merited  nor  wished  to  claim. 
But  one  penal  reaction  of  mendacious  adulation,  for 
him  who  is  weak  enough  to  accept  it,  must  ever  be, 
to  impose  restraints  upon  his  own  conduct,  which 
otherwise  he  would  have  been  free  to  decline.  How 
lightly  would  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  have  thought  of 
a  little  sotting  in  any  honest  gentleman  of  right  poli 
tics  !  And  Addison  would  not,  in  that  age,  and  as  to 
that  point,  have  carried  his  scrupulosity  higher  than 
his  own  Sir  Roger.  But  such  knaves  as  he  who  had 
complimented  Addison  with  the  praise  of  having 
written  '  no  line  which,  dying,  he  could  wish  to  blot,' 
whereas,  in  fact,  Addison  started  in  life  by  publishing 
a  translation  of  Petronius  Arbiter,  had  painfully 
coerced  his  free  agency.  This  knave,  I  very  much 
fear,  was  Tickell  the  first ;  and  the  result  of  his 
knavery  was,  to  win  for  Addison  a  disagreeable  sanc 
timonious  reputation  that  was,  1st,  founded  in  lies ; 
2d,  that  painfully  limited  Addison's  free  agency  ; 
and,  3dly,  that  prepared  insults  to  his  memory,  since 
it  pointed  a  censorious  eye  upon  those  things  viewed 
as  the  acts  of  a  demure  pretender  to  piety,  which 
would  else  have  passed  without  notice  as  the  most 
venial  of  frailties  in  a  layman. 

Something  I  had  to  say  also  upon  Homer,  who 
mingles  amongst  the  examples  cited  by  Mr.  Gilfillan, 
of  apparent  happiness  connected  with  genius.  But, 
for  want  of  room,4  I  forbear  to  go  further,  than  to 
lodge  my  protest  against  imputing  to  Homer  as  any 
personal  merit,  what  belongs  altogether  to  the  stage  of 
society  in  which  he  lived.  *  They,'  says  Mr.  Gilfillan, 


JOHN 

speaking  of  the  'Iliad 'and  the  *  Odyssey,1  'tire  the 
healthiest  of  works.  There  are  in  them  no  sullenness, 
no  querulous  complaint,  not  one  personal  allusion.' 
No ;  but  how  could  there  have  been  ?  Subjective 
poetry  had  not  an  existence  in  those  days.  Not  only 
the  powers  for  introverting  the  eye  upon  the  spectator, 
as  himself,  the  spectaculum,  were  then  undeveloped 
and  inconceivable,  but  the  sympathies  did  not  exist  to 
which  such  an  innovation  could  have  appealed. 
Besides,  and  partly  from  the  same  cause,  even  as 
objects,  the  human  feelings  and  affections  were  too 
broadly  and  grossly  distinguished,  had  not  reached 
even  the  infancy  of  that  stage  in  which  the  passions 
begin  their  processes  of  intermodification,  nor  could 
have  reached  it,  from  the  simplicity  of  social  life,  as 
well  as  from  the  barbarism  of  the  Greek  religion. 
The  author  of  the  l  Iliad,'  or  even  of  the  4  Odyssey,' 
(though  doubtless  a  product  of  a  later  period,)  could 
not  have  been  '  unhealthy,'  or  '  sullen,'  or  '  querulous,' 
from  any  cause,  except  psora  or  elephantiasis,  or 
scarcity  of  beef,  or  similar  afflictions  with  which  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  inoculate  poetry.  The  metrical 
romances  of  the  middle  ages  have  the  same  shivering 
character  of  starvation,  as  to  the  inner  life  of  man  ; 
and,  if  that  constitutes  a  meritorious  distinction,  no 
man  ought  to  be  excused  for  wanting  what  it  is  so  easy 
to  obtain  by  simple  neglect  of  culture.  On  the  same 
principle,  a  cannibal,  if  truculently  indiscriminate  in 
his  horrid  diet,  might  win  sentimental  praises  for  his 
temperance  ;  others  were  picking  and  choosing,  mis 
erable  epicures !  but  he,  the  saint  upon  earth,  cared 
not  what  he  ate ;  any  joint  satisfied  his  moderate 


86  JOHN    KEATS. 

desires  ;  shoulder  of  man,  leg  of  child  ;  anything,  in 
fact,  that  was  nearest  at  hand,  so  long  as  it  was  good, 
wholesome  human  flesh  ;  and  the  more  plainly  dressed 
the  better. 

But  these  topics,  so  various  and  so  fruitful,  I  touch 
only  because  they  are  introduced,  amongst  many 
others,  by  Mr.  Gilfillan.  Separately  viewed,  some 
of  these  would  be  more  attractive  than  any  merely 
personal  interest  connected  with  Keats.  His  biogra 
phy,  stripped  of  its  false  coloring,  offers  little  to  win 
attention  :  for  he  was  not  the  victim  of  any  systematic 
malignity,  as  has  been  represented.  He  met,  as  I 
have  understood,  with  unusual  kindness  from  his 
liberal  publishers,  Messrs.  Taylor  and  Hessey.  He 
met  with  unusual  severity  from  a  cynical  reviewer,  the 
late  Mr.  Gifford,  then  editor  of  The  Quarterly  Review. 
The  story  ran,  that  this  article  ojf  Mr.  (Vs  had  killed 
Keats ;  upon  which,  with  natural  astonishment,  Lord 
Byron  thus  commented,  in  the  llth  canto  of  Don 
Juan :  — 

John  Keats  who  was  kill'd  off  by  one  critique, 
Just  as  he  really  promised  something  great, 

If  not  intelligible,  —  without  Greek, 
Contrived  to  talk  about  the  gods  of  late, 

Much  as  they  might  have  been  supposed  to  speak. 
Poor  fellow !  his  was  an  untoward  fate  : 

'Tis  strange  the  mind,  that  very  fiery  particle, 

Should  let  itself  be  snufTd  out  by  an  Article. 

Strange,  indeed  !  and  the  friends,  who  honor  Keats's 
memory,  should  not  lend  themselves  to  a  story  so 
degrading.  He  died,  I  believe,  of  pulmonary  con 
sumption  ;  and  would  have  died  of  it,  probably,  under 


JOHN    KEATS.  87 

any  circumstances  of  prosperity  as  a  poet.  Doubt 
less,  in  a  condition  of  languishing  decay,  slight  causes 
of  irritation  act  powerfully.  But  it  is  hardly  con 
ceivable  that  one  ebullition  of  splenetic  bad  feeling, 
in  a  case  so  proverbially  open  to  revision  as  the 
pretensions  of  a  poet,  could  have  overthrown  any 
masculine  life,  unless  where  that  life  had  already  been 
irrecoverably  undermined  by  sickness.  As  a  man,  ^ 
and  viewed  in  relation  to  social  objects,  Keats  was 
nothing.  It  was  as  mere  an  affectation  when  he 
talked  with  apparent  zeal  of  liberty,  or  human  rights, 
or  human  prospects,  as  is  the  hollow  enthusiasm  which 
many  people  profess  for  music,  or  most  poets  for 
external  nature.  For  these  things  Keats  fancied  that 
he  cared  ;  but  in  reality  he  cared  not  at  all.  Upon 
them,  or  any  of  their  aspects,  he  had  thought  too 
little,  and  too  indeterminately,  to  feel  for  them  as 
personal  concerns.  Whereas  Shelley,  from  his  earliest 
days,  was  mastered  and  shaken  by  the  great  moving 
realities  of  life,  as  a  prophet  is  by  the  burden  of 
wrath  or  of  promise  which  he  has  been  commissioned 
to  reveal.  Had  there  been  no  such  thing  as  literature, 
Keats  would  have  dwindled  into  a  cipher.  Shelley,  in 
the  same  event,  would  hardly  have  lost  one  plume 
from  his  crest.  It  is  in  relation  to  literature,  and  to 
the  boundless  questions  as  to  the  true  and  the  false 
arising  out  of  literature  and  poetry,  that  Keats  chal 
lenges  a  fluctuating  interest ;  sometimes  an  interest 
of  strong  disgust,  sometimes  of  deep  admiration. 
Tin-re  is  not,  I  believe,  a  case  on  record  throughout 
European  literature,  where  feelings  so  repulsive  of 
each  other  have  centred  in  the  same  individual. 


88  JOHN    KEATS. 

The  very  midsummer  madness  of  affectation,  of  false 
vapory  sentiment,  and  of  fantastic  effeminacy,  seemed 
to  me  combined  in  Keats's  Endymion,  when  I  first 
saw  it  near  the  close  of  1821.  The  Italian  poet, 
Marino,  had  been  reputed  the  greatest  master  of  gos 
samery  affectation  in  Europe.  But  his  conceits  showed 
the  palest  of  rosy  blushes  by  the  side  of  Keats's 
bloody  crimson.  Naturally,  I  was  discouraged  from 
looking  further.  But  about  a  week  later,  by  pure 
accident,  my  eye  fell  upon  his  Hyperion.  The  first 
feeling  was  that  of  incredulity  that  the  two  poems 
could,  under  change  of  circumstances  or  lapse  of 
time,  have  emanated  from  the  same  mind.  The 
Endymion  displays  absolutely  the  most  shocking  revolt 
against  good  sense  and  just  feeling,  that  all  literature 
does  now,  or  ever  can,  furnish.  The  Hyperion,  as 
Mr.  Gilfillan  truly  says,  '  is  the  greatest  of  poetical 
torsos.'  The  first  belongs  essentially  to  the  vilest 
collections  of  wax-work  filagree,  or  gilt  gingerbread. 
The  other  presents  the  majesty,  the  austere  beauty, 
and  the  simplicity  of  Grecian  temples  enriched  with 
Grecian  sculpture. 

We  have  in  this  country  a  word,  viz.  the  word  Folly, 
which  has  a  technical  appropriation  to  the  case  of 
fantastic  buildings.  Any  building  is  called  ca  folly,'5  . 
which  mimics  purposes  incapable  of  being  realized, 
and  makes  a  promise  to  the  eye  which  it  cannot  keep 
to  the  experience.  The  most  impressive  illustration 
of  this  idea,  which  modern  times  have  seen,  was, 
undoubtedly,  the  ice-palace  of  the  Empress  Eliza 
beth  6  — 

'  That  most  magnificent  and  mighty  freak,' 


JOHN    KEATS.  89 

which,  about  eighty  years  ago,  was  called  up  from  the 
depths  of  winter  by 

'  The  imperial  mistress  of  the  fur-clad  Russ.' 

Winter  and  the  Czarina  were,  in  this  architecture, 
fellow-laborers.  She,  by  her  servants,  furnished  the 
blocks  of  ice,  hewed  them,  dressed  them,  laid  them : 
winter  furnished  the  cement,  by  freezing  them  toge 
ther.  The  palace  has  long  melted  back  into  water ; 
and  the  poet  who  described  it  best,  viz.  Cowper,  is  not 
so  much  read  in  this  age,  except  by  the  religious.  It 
will,  therefore,  be  a  sort  of  resurrection  for  both  the 
palace  and  the  poet,  if  I  cite  his  description  of  this 
gorgeous  folly.  It  is  a  passage  in  which  Cowper 
assumes  so  much  of  a  Miltonic  tone,  that,  of  the  two, 
it  is  better  to  have  read  his  lasting  description,  than  to 
have  seen,  with  bodily  eyes,  the  fleeting  reality.  The 
poet  is  apostrophizing  the  Empress  Elizabeth. 

«  No  forest  fell, 


When  thou  wouldst  build :  no  quarry  sent  its  stores 
To  enrich  thy  walls  :  but  thou  didst  hew  the  floods, 
And  make  thy  marble  of  the  glassy  wave. 

Silently  as  a  dream  the  fabric  rose : 

No  sound  of  hammer  or  of  saw  was  there  : 

Ice  upon  ice,  the  well-adjusted  parts 

Were  soon  conjoin'd,  nor  other  cement  ask'd 

Than  water  interfus'd  to  make  them  one. 

Lamps  gracefully  disposed,  and  of  all  hues, 

Illumin'd  every  side  ;  a  watery  light 

Gleam'd  through  the  clear  transparency,  that  seem'd 

Another  moon  new-risen  : 


90  JOHN    KEATS. 

Nor  wanted  aught  within 

That  royal  residence  might  well  befit 

For  grandeur  or  for  use.     Long  weavy  wreaths 

Of  flowers,  that  feared  no  enemy  but  warmth, 

Blush'd  on  the  panels.     Mirror  needed  none, 

Where  all  was  vitreous  :  but  in  order  due 

Convivial  table  and  commodious  seat 

(What  seem'd  at  least  commodious  seat)  were  there  ; 

Sofa,  and  couch,  and  high-built  throne  august. 

The  same  lubricity  was  found  in  all, 

And  all  was  moist  to  the  warm  touch  ;  a  scene 

Of  evanescent  glory,  once  a  stream, 

And  soon  to  slide  into  a  stream  again.' 

The   poet  concludes  by  viewing   the   whole  as  an 
unintentional  stroke  of  satire  by  the  Czarina, 

'  On  her'own  estate, 


On  human  grandeur,  and  the  courts  of  kings. 

'Twas  transient  in  its  nature,  as  in  show 

'T  was  durable  ;  as  worthless,  as  it  seem'd 

Intrinsically  precious  :  to  the  foot 

Treacherous  and  false,  —  it  smiled,  and  it  was  cold.' 

Looking  at  this  imperial  plaything  of  ice  in  the 
month  of  March,  and  recollecting  that  in  May  all  its 
crystal  arcades  would  be  weeping  away  into  vernal 
brooks,  one  would  have  been  disposed  to  mourn 'over 
a  beauty  so  frail,  and  to  marvel  at  a  frailty"  so  elabo 
rate.  Yet  still  there  was  some  proportion  observed  : 
the  saloons  were  limited  in  number,  though  not  limited 
in  splendor.  It  was  tf  petit  Trianon.  But  what  if, 
like  Versailles,  this  glittering  bauble,  to  which  all  the 
science  of  Europe  could  not  have  secured  a  passport 
into  June,  had  contained  six  thousand  separate  rooms? 
A  'folly'  on  so  gigantic  a  scale  would  have  moved 


JOHN    KEATS.  91 

every  man  to  indignation.  For  all  that  could  be  had, 
the  beauty  to  the  eye,  and  the  gratification  to  the 
fancy,  in  seeing  water  tortured  into  every  form  of 
solidity,  resulted  from  two  or  three  suites  of  rooms,  as 
fully  as  from  a  thousand. 

Now,  such  a  folly,  as  would  have  been  the  Cza 
rina's,  if  executed  upon  the  scale  of  Versailles,  or  of 
the  new  palace  at  St.  Petersbugh,  was  the  Endymion  : 
a  gigantic  edifice  (for  its  tortuous  enigmas  of  thought 
multiplied  every  line  of  the  four  thousand  into  fifty) 
reared  upon  a  basis  slighter  and  less  apprehensible 
than  moonshine.  As  reasonably,  and  as  hopefully  in 
regard  to  human  sympathies,  might  a  man  undertake 
an  epic  poem  upon  the  loves  of  two  butterflies.  The 
modes  of  existence  in  the  two  parties  to  the  love-fable 
of  the  Endymion,  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to 
us,  their  prospects  finally,  and  the  obstacles  to  the 
instant  realization  of  these  prospects, —  all  these 
things  are  more  vague  and  incomprehensible  than 
the  reveries  of  an  oyster.  Still  the  unhappy  subject, 
and  its  unhappy  expansion,  must  be  laid  to  the  account 
of  childish  years  and  childish  inexperience.  But  there 
is  another  fault  in  Keats,  of  the  first  magnitude,  which 
youth  does  not  palliate,  which  youth  even  aggravates. 
This  lies  in  the  most  shocking  abuse  of  his  mother- 
tongue.  If  there  is  one  thing  in  this  world  that,  next 
after  the  flag  of  his  country  and  its  spotless  honor, 
should  be  wholly  in  the  eyes  of  a  young  poet,  —  it  is 
the  language  of  his  country.  He  should  spend  the 
third  part  of  his  life  in  studying  this  language,  and 
cultivating  its  total  resources.  He  should  be  willing  to 
pluck  out  his  right  eye,  or  to  circumnavigate  the  globe, 


92  JOHN    KEATS. 

if  by  such  a  sacrifice,  if  by  such  an  exertion,  he  could 
attain  to  greater  purity,  precision,  compass,  or  idioma 
tic  energy  of  diction.  This  if  he  were  even  a  Kal 
muck  Tartar,  who  by  the  way  has  the  good  feeling 
and  patriotism  to  pride  himself  upon  his  beastly  lan 
guage.7  But  Keats  was  an  Englishman  ;  Keats  had 
the  honor  to  speak  the  language  of  Chaucer,  Shak- 
speare,  Bacon,  Milton,  Newton.  The  more  awful  was 
the  obligation  of  his  allegiance.  And  yet  upon  this 
mother  tongue,  upon  this  English  language,  has  Keats 
trampled  as  with  the  hoofs  of  a  buffalo.  With  its 
syntax,  with  its  prosody,  with  its  idiom,  he  has  played 
such  fantastic  tricks  as  could  enter  only  into  the  heart 
of  a  barbarian,  and  for  which  only  the  anarchy  of 
Chaos  could  furnish  a  forgiving  audience.  Verily  it 
required  the  Hyperion  to  weigh  against  the  deep 
treason  of  these  unparalleled  offences. 


NOTES. 


NOTE  1.     Page  78. 

THERE  is  one  peculiarity  about  Lucretius  which,  even  in  the 
absence  of  all  anecdotes  to  that  effect,  would  have  led  an 
observing  reader  to  suspect  some  unsoundness  in  his  brain. 
It  is  this,  and  it  lies  in  his  manner.  In  all  poetic  enthusiasm, 
however  grand  and  sweeping  may  be  its  compass,  so  long  as 
it  is  healthy  and  natural,  there  is  a  principle  of  self-restoration 
in  the  opposite  direction  :  there  is  a  counter  state  of  repose,  a 
compensatory  state,  as  in  the  tides  of  the  sea,  which  tends 
continually  to  re-establish  the  equipoise.  The  lull  is  no  less 
intense  than  the  fury  of  commotion.  But  in  Lucretius  there 
is  no  lull.  Nor  would  there  seem  to  be  any,  were  it  not  for  two 
accidents  :  1st,  the  occasional  pause  in  his  raving  tone  enforced 
by  the  interruption  of  an  episode  j  2dly,  the  restraints  (or  at 
least  the  suspensions)  imposed  upon  him  by  the  difficulties  of 
argument  conducted  in  verse.  To  dispute  metrically,  is  as 
embarrassing  as  to  run  or  dance  when  knee-deep  in  sand. 
Else,  and  apart  from  these  counteractions,  the  motion  of  the 
style  is  not  only  stormy,  but  self-kindling  and  continually 
accelerated. 

NOTE  2.     Page  79. 

1  Habit  of  body  : '  but  much  more  from  mismanagement  of 
his  body.  Dr.  Johnson  tampered  with  medical  studies,  and 
fancied  himself  learned  enough  to  prescribe  for  his  female 


94  JOHN    KEATS. 

correspondents.  The  affectionateness  with  which  he  some 
times  did  this  is  interesting;  but  his  ignorance  of  the  subject 
is  not  the  less  apparent.  In  his  own  case  he  had  the  merit  of 
one  heroic  self-conquest  ;  he  weaned  himself  from  wine,  hav 
ing  once  become  convinced  that  it  was  injurious.  But  he 
never  brought  himself  to  take  regular  exercise.  He  ate  too 
much  at  all  times  of  his  life.  And  in  another  point,  he 
betrayed  a  thoughtlessness,  which  (though  really  common  as 
laughter)  is  yet  extravagantly  childish.  Every  body  knows 
that  Dr.  Johnson  was  all  his  life  reproaching  himself  with 
lying  too  long  in  bed.  Always  he  was  sinning,  (for  he  thought 
it  a  sin  j)  always  he  was  repenting  ;  always  he  was  vainly 
endeavoring  to  reform.  But  why  vainly  ?  Cannot  a  resolute 
man  in  six  weeks  bring  himself  to  rise  at  any  hour  of  the 
twenty-four  ?  Certainly  he  can  j  but  not  without  appropriate 
means.  Now  the  Doctor  rose  about  eleven,  A.  M.  This,  he 
fancied,  was  shocking  ;  he  was  determined  to  rise  at  eight,  or 
at  seven.  Very  well ;  why  not  ?  But  will  it  be  credited  that 
the  one  sole  change  occuring  to  the  Doctor's  mind,  was  to  take 
a  flying  leap  backwards  from  eleven  to  eight,  without  any 
corresponding  leap  at  the  other  terminus  of  his  sleep.  To 
rise  at  eight  instead  of  eleven,  presupposes  that  a  man  goes 
off  to  bed  at  twelve  instead  of  three.  Yet  this  recondite 
truth,  never  to  his  dying  day  dawned  on  Dr.  Johnson's  mind. 
The  conscientious  man  continued  to  offend;  continued  to  re 
pent  ;  continued  to  pave  a  disagreeable  place  with  good  inten 
tions,  and  daily  resolutions  of  amendment ;  but  at  length  died 
full  of  years,  without  having  once  seen  the  sun  rise,  except  in 
some  Homeric  description,  written  [as  Mr.  Fynes  Clifton 
makes  it  probable]  thirty  centuries  before.  The  fact  of  the 
sun's  rising  at  all, 'the  Doctor  adopted  as  a  point  of  faith,  and 
by  no  means  of  personal  knowledge,  from  an  insinuation  to 
that  effect  in  the  most  ancient  of  Greek  books. 

NOTE  3.     Page  81. 

One  of  these  examples  is  equivocal,  in  a  way  that  Mr.  Gil- 
fillan  is  apparently  not  aware  of.    He  cites  Tickell,   '  whose 


NOTES.  95 

very  name '  [he  says]  '  savors  of  laughter,'  as  being,  '  in 
f;i  t,  a  very  happy  fellow.'  In  the  first  place,  Tickell  would 
have  been  likly  to  'square'  at  Mr.  Gilfillan  for  that  liberty 
taken  with  his  name;  or  might  even,  in  Falstaff's  language, 
have  tried  to  '  tickle  his  catastrophe.'  It  is  a  ticklish  thing  to 
lark  with  honest  men's  names.  But,  secondly,  which  Tickell? 
For  there  are  two  at  the  least  in  the  field  of  English  literature  : 
and  if  one  of  them  was  'very  happy,'  the  chances  are,  ac 
cording  to  D.  Bernoulli  and  De  Moivre,  that  the  other  was 
particularly  miserable.  The  first  Tickell,  who  may  be  de 
scribed  as  Addison's  Tickell,  never  tickled  anything,  that  I 
know  of,  except  Addison's  vanity.  But  Tickell  the  second, 
who  came  into  working  order  about  fifty  years  later,  was 
really  a  very  pleasant  fellow.  In  the  time  of  Burke  he 
diverted  the  whole  nation  by  his  poem  of  '  Anticipation,1  in 
which  he  anticipated  and  dramatically  rehearsed  the  course  of 
a  whole  Parliamentary  debate,  (on  the  king's  speech,)  which 
did  not  take  place  till  a  week  or  two  afterwards.  Such  a 
mimicry  was  easy  enough  :  but  that  did  not  prevent  its  fidelity 
and  characteristic  truth  from  delighting  the  political  world. 

NOTE  4.     Page  84. 

For  the  same  reason,  I  refrain  from  noticing  the  pretensions 
of  Savage.  Mr.  Gilfillan  gives  us  to  understand,  that  not 
from  want  of  room,  but  of  time,  he  does  not  (which  else  he 
could}  prove  him  to  be  the  man  he  pretended  to  be.  For  my 
own  part,  I  believe  Savage  to  have  been  the  vilest  of  swind 
lers  ;  and  in  these  days,  under  the  surveillance  of  an  active 
police,  he  would  have  lost  the  chance  which  he  earned  of 
being  hanged,  by  having  long  previously  been  transported  to 
the  Plantations.  How  can  Mr.  Gilfillan  allow  himself,  in  a 
case  of  this  nature,  to  speak  of  '  universal  impression '  (if  it 
had  really  existed)  as  any  separate  ground  of  credibility  for 
Savage's  tale  ?  When  the  public  have  no  access  at  all  to 
sound  means  of  judging,  what  matters  it  in  which  direction 
their  'impression'  lies,  or  how  many  thousands  swell  the 


JOHN    KEATS. 

belief,  for  which  not  one  of  all  these  thousands  has  anything 
like  a  reason  to  offer  ? 

NOTE  5.     Page  88. 

1  A  folly?  We  English  limit  the  application  of  this  term  to 
buildings :  but  the  idea  might  as  fitly  be  illustrated  in  other 
objects.  For  instance,  the  famous  galley  presented  to  one  of 
the  Ptolemies,  which  offered  the  luxurious  accommodations  of 
capital  cities,  but  required  a  little  army  of  four  thousand  men 
to  row  it,  whilst  its  draught  of  water  was  too  great  to  allow  of 
its  often  approaching  the  shore ;  this  was  '  a  folly '  in  our 
English  sense.  So  again  was  the  Macedonian  phalanx  :  the 
Roman  legion  could  form  upon  any  ground  :  it  was  a  true 
working  tool.  But  the  phalanx  was  too  fine  and  showy  for 
use.  It  required  for  its  manoeuvring  a  sort  of  opera  stage,  or 
a  select  bowling-green,  such  as  few  fields  of  battle  offered. 

NOTE  6.     Page  88. 

I  had  written  the  'Empress  Catherine;1  but,  on  second 
thoughts,  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  'mighty  freak'  was,  in 
fact,  due  to  the  Empress  Elizabeth.  There  is,  however,  a 
freak  connected  with  ice,  not  quite  so  '  mighty,'  but  quite  as 
autocratic,  and  even  more  feminine  in  its  caprice,  which 
belongs  exclusively  to  the  Empress  Catherine.  A  lady  had 
engaged  the  affections  of  some  young  noblemen,  who  was 
regarded  favorably  by  the  imperial  eye.  No  pretext  offered 
itself  for  interdicting  the  marriage  ;  but,  by  way  of  freezing 
it  a  little  at  the  outset,  the  Czarina  coupled  with  her  permis 
sion  this  condition  —  that  the  wedding  night  should  be  passed 
by  the  young  couple  on  a  mattress  of  her  gift.  The  mattress 
turned  out  to  be  a  block  of  ice,  elegantly  cut,  by  the  court 
upholsterer,  into  the  likeness  of  a  well  stuffed  Parisian  mat 
tress.  One  pities  the  poor  bride,  whilst  it  is  difficult,  to  avoid 
laughing  in  the  midst  of  one's  sympathy.  But  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  nowA'osewas  issued  against  spreading  seven  Turkey  carpets, 
by  way  of  under-blankets,  over  this  amiable  nuptial  present. 
Amongst  others  who  have  noticed  the  story,  is  Captain  Colville 
Frankland,  of  the  navy. 


NOTES.  97 

NOTE  7.     Page  92. 

BergmanOj  the  German  traveller,  in  his  account  of  his  long 
rambles  and  residence  amongst  the  Kalmucks,  makes  us 
acquainted  with  the  delirious  vanity  which  possesses  these 
demi-savages.  Their  notion  is,  that  excellence  of  every  kind, 
perfection  in  the  least  things  as  in  the  greatest,  is  briefly 
expressed  by  calling  it  Kalmuckish.  Accordingly,  their  hideous 
language,  and  their  vast  national  poem,  [doubtless  equally 
hideous,]  they  hold  to  be  the  immediate  gifts  of  inspiration  : 
and  for  this  I  honor  them,  as  each  generation  learns  both  from 
the  lips  of  their  mothers.  This  great  poem,  by  the  way, 
measures  (if  I  remember)  seventeen  English  miles  in  length  ; 
but  the  most  -learned  man  amongst  them,  in  fact  a  monster  of 
erudition,  never  read  farther  than  the  eighth  mile-stone.  What 
he  could  repeat  by  heart  was  little  more  than  a  mile  and  a 
half;  and,  indeed,  that  was  found  too  much  for  the  choleric 
part  of  his  audience.  Even  the  Kalmuck  face,  which  to  us 
foolish  Europeans  looks  so  unnecessarily  flat  and  ogre-like, 
these  honest  Tartars  have  ascertained  to  be  the  pure  classi 
cal  model  of  human  beauty,  —  which,  in  fact,  it  is,  upon  the 
principle  of  those  people  who  hold  that  the  chief  use  of  a  face 
is  —  to  frighten  one's  enemy. 


OLIVER  GOLDSMITH.* 


THIS  book  accomplishes  a  retribution  which  the 
world  has  waited  for  through  seventy  and  odd  years. 
Welcome  at  any  rate  by  its  purpose,  it  is  trebly  wel 
come  by  its  execution,  to  all  hearts  that  linger  indul 
gently  over  the  frailties  of  a  national  favorite  once 
wickedly  exaggerated  —  to  all  hearts  that  brood  in 
dignantly  over  the  powers  of  that  favorite  once 
maliciously  undervalued. 

A  man  of  original  genius,  shown  to  us  as  revolving 
through  the  leisurely  stages  of  a  biographical  memoir, 
lays  open,  to  readers  prepared  for  sympathy,  two 
separate  theatres  of  interest :  one  in  his  personal 
career ;  the  other  in  his  works  and  his  intellectual 
development.  Both  unfold  together :  and  each  bor 
rows  a  secondary  interest  from  the  other :  the  life 
from  the  recollection  of  the  works  —  the  works  from 
the  joy  and  sorro\v  of  the  life.  There  have,  indeed, 
been  authors  whose  great  creations,  severely  precon 
ceived  in  a  region  of  thought  transcendent  to  all 
impulses  of  earth,  would  have  been  pretty  nearly 
what  they  are  under  any  possible  changes  in  tho 

*  The  Life  and  Adventures  of  Goldsmith,  by  John  Forster. 


100  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

dramatic  arrangement  of  their  lives.  Happy  or  not 
happy  —  gay  or  sad  —  these  authors  would  equally 
have  fulfilled  a  mission  too  solemn  and  too  stern  in 
its  obligations  to  suffer  any  warping  from  chance,  or 
to  bend  before  the  accidents  of  life,  whether  dressed 
in  sunshine  or  in  wintry  gloom.  But  generally  this 
is  otherwise.  Children  of  Paradise,  like  the  Miltons 
of  our  planet,  have  the  privilege  of  stars  —  to  '  dwell 
apart.'  But  the  children' of  flesh,  whose  pulses  beat 
too  sympathetically  with  the  agitations  of  mother- 
earth,  cannot  sequester  themselves  in  that  way.  They 
walk  in  no  such  altitudes,  but  at  elevations  easily 
reached  by  ground- winds  of  humble  calamity.  And 
from  that  cup  of  sorrow,  which  upon  all  lips  is  pressed 
in  some  proportion,  they  must  submit,  by  the  very 
tenure  on  which  they  hold  their  gifts,  to  drink,  if  not 
more  profoundly  than  others,  yet  always  with  more 
peril  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  earthly  mission. 

Amongst  this  household  of  children  too  tremulously 
associated  to  the  fluctuations  of  earth,  stands  forward 
conspicuously  Oliver  Goldsmith.  And  there  is  a  belief 
current  —  that  he  was  conspicuous,  not  only  in  the 
sense  of  being  constitutionally  flexible  to  the  impres 
sions  of  sorrow  and  adversity,  in  case  they  had  hap 
pened  to  occur,  but  also  that  he  really  had  more  than 
his  share  of  those  afflictions.  We  are  disposed  to 
think  that  this  was  not  so.  Our  trust  is,  that  Gold 
smith  lived  upon  the  whole  a  life  which,  though 
troubled,  was  one  of  average  enjoyment.  Unques 
tionably,  when  reading  at  midnight,  and  in  the  middle 
watch  of  a  century  which  he  never  reached,  this 
record  of  one  so  amiable,  so  guileless,  so  upright,  or 


OLIVER   GOLDSMITH.  101 

seeming  to  be  otherwise  for  a  moment  only  in  the 
eyes  of  those  who  did  not  know  his  difficulties,  nor 
could  have  understood  them  ;  when  recurring  also  to 
his  admirable  genius,  to  the  sweet  natural  gaiety  of 
his  oftentimes  pathetic  humor,  and  to  the  varied  ac 
complishments  from  talent  or  erudition,  by  which  he 
gave  effect  to  endowments  so  fascinating  —  one  cannot 
but  sorrow  over  the  strife  which  he  sustained,  and 
over  the  wrong  by  which  he  suffered.  A  few  natural 
tears  one  sheds  at  the  rehearsal  of  so  much  contumely 
from  fools,  which  he  stood  under  unresistingly  as  one 
bareheaded  under  a  hail-storm  ; l  and  worse  to  bear 
than  the  scorn  of  fools,  was  the  imperfect  sympathy 
and  jealous  self-distrusting  esteem  which  he  received 
to  the  last  from  friends.  Doubtless  he  suffered  much 
wrong  ;  but  so,  in  one  way  or  other,  do  most  men  : 
he  suffered  also  this  special  wrong,  that  in  his  life- 
time  he  never  was  fully  appreciated  by  any  one  friend 
—  something  of  a  counter-movement  ever  mingled 
with  praise  for  him  —  he  never  saw  himself  enthroned 
in  the  heart  of  any  young  and  fervent  admirer,  and 
he  was  always  overshadowed  by  men  less  deeply 
genial,  though  more  showy  than  himself:  but  these 
things  happen,  and  have  happened  to  myriads  amongst 
the  benefactors  of  earth.  Their  names  ascend  in 
songs  of  thankful  commemoration,  but  not  until  the 
ears  are  deaf  that  would  have  thrilled  to  the  music. 
And  these  were  the  heaviest  of  Goldsmith's  afllictions  : 
what  are  likely  to  be  thought  such,  viz.  the  battles 
which  he  fought  for  his  daily  bread,  we  do  not  number 
amongst  them.  To  struggle  is  not  to  suffer.  Heaven 
grants  to  few  of  us  a  life  of  untroubled  prosperity, 


102  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

and  grants  it  least  of  all  to  its  favorites.  Charles  I. 
carried,  as  it  was  thought  by  a  keen  Italian  judge  of 
physiognomy,  a  predestination  to  misery  written  in 
his  features.  And  it  is  probable  that  if  any  Cornelius 
Agrippa  had  then  been  living,  to  show  him  in  early 
life  the  strife,  the  bloodshed,  the  triumphs  of  enemies, 
the  treacheries  of  friends,  the  separation  for  ever  from 
the  familiar  faces  of  his  hearth,  which  darkened  the 
years  from  1642  to  1649,  he  would  have  said  — 
4  Prophet  of  wo  !  if  I  bear  to  live  through  this  vista 
of  seven  years,  it  is  because  at  the  further  end  of  it 
thou  showest  me  the  consolation  of  a  scaffold.'  And 
yet  our  persuasion  is,  that  in  the  midst  of  its  deadly 
agitations  and  its  torments  of  suspense,  probably 
enough  by  the  energies  of  hope,  or  even  of  anxiety 
which  exalted  it,  that  period  of  bitter  conflict  was 
found  by  the  king  a  more  ennobling  life  than  he  would 
have  found  in  the  torpor  of  a  prosperity  too  profound. 
To  be  cloyed  perpetually  is  a  worse  fate  than  some 
times  to  stand  within  the  vestibule  of  starvation  ;  and 
we  need  go  no  further  than  the  confidential  letters 
of  the  court  ladies  of  this  and  other  countries  to  satisfy 
ourselves  how  much  worse  in  its  effects  upon  happi 
ness  than  any  condition  of  alarm  and  peril,  is  the 
lethargic  repose  of  luxury  too  monotonous,  and  of 
security  too  absolute.  If,  therefore,  Goldsmith's  life 
had  been  one  of  continual  struggle,  it  would  not  follow 
that  it  had  therefore  sunk  below  the  standard  of  ordi 
nary  happiness.  But  the  life-struggle  of  Goldsmith, 
though  severe  enough  (after  all  allowances)  to  chal 
lenge  a  feeling  of  tender  compassion,  was  not  in  such 
a  degree  severe  as  has  been  represented.2  He  en- 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  103 

joyed  two  great  immunities  from  suffering  that  have 
been  much  overlooked  ;  and  such  immunities  that,  in 
our  opinion,  four  in  five  of  all  the  people  ever  con 
nected  with  Goldsmith's  works,  as  publishers,  printers, 
compositors  (that  is,  men  taken  at  random),  have  very 
probably  suffered  more,  upon  the  whole,  than  he. 
The  immunities  were  these  :  —  1st,  From  any  bodily 
taint  of  low  spirits.  He  had  a  constitutional  gaiety 
of  heart ;  an  elastic  hilarity  ;  and,  as  he  himself  ex 
presses  it,  c  a  knack  of  hoping '  —  which  knack  could 
not  be  bought  with  Ormus  and  with  Ind,  nor  hired  for 
a  day  with  the  peacock-throne  of  Delhi.  How  easy 
was  it  to  bear  the  brutal  affront  of  being  to  his  face 
described  as  c  Doctor  minorS  when  one  hour  or  less 
would  dismiss  the  Doctor  major,  so  invidiously  con 
tradistinguished  from  himself,  to  a  struggle  with  scrof 
ulous  melancholy;  whilst  he,  if  returning  to  solitude 
and  a  garret,  was  returning  also  to  habitual  cheerful 
ness.  There  lay  one  immunity,  beyond  all  price, 
from  a  mode  of  strife  to  which  others,  by  a  large 
majority,  are  doomed  —  strife  with  bodily  wretched 
ness.  Another  immunity  he  had  of  almost  equal 
value,  and  yet  almost  equally  forgotten  by  his  biog 
raphers,  viz.,  from  the  responsibilities  of  a  family. 
Wife  and  children  he  had  not.  They  it  is  that,  being 
a  man's  chief  blessings,  create  also  for  him  the  dead 
liest  of  his  anxieties,  that  stuff  his  pillow  with  thorns, 
that  surround  his  daily  path  with  snares.  Suppose  the 
case  of  a  man  who  has  helpless  dependents  of  this 
class  upon  himself  summoned  to  face  some  sudden 
failure  of  his  resources  :  how  shattering  to  the  power 
of  exertion,  and,  above  all,  of  exertion  by  an  organ 


104  OLIVER   GOLDSMITH. 

so  delicate  as  the  creative  intellect,  dealing  with  sub 
jects  so  coy  as  those  of  imaginative  sensibility,  to 
know  that  instant  ruin  attends  his  failure.  Success  in 
such  paths  of  literature  might  at  the  best  be  doubtful ; 
but  success  is  impossible,  with  any  powers  whatever, 
unless  in  a  genial  state  of  those  powers ;  and  this 
geniality  is  to  be  sustained  in  the  case  supposed,  whilst 
the  eyes  are  fixed  upon  the  most  frightful  of  abysses 
yawning  beneath  his  feet.  life  is  to  win  his  inspira 
tion  for  poetry  or  romance  from  the  prelusive  cries 
of  infants  clamoring  for  daily  bread.  Now,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  the  case  of  an  extremity  equally  sudden 
alighting  on  the  head  of  a  man  in  Goldsmith's  posi 
tion,  having  no  burden  to  support  but  the  trivial  one 
of  his  own  personal  needs,  the  resources  arc  endless 
for  gaining  time  enough  to  look  around.  Suppose 
him  ejected  from  his  lodgings;  let  him  walk  into  the 
country,  with  a  pencil  and  a  sheet  of  paper;  there 
sitting  under  a  hay-stack  for  one  morning,  he  may 
produce  what  will  pay  his  expenses  for  a  week  :  a 
day's  labor  will  carry  the  sustenance  of  ten  days. 
Poor  may  be  the  trade  of  authorship,  but  it  is  as  good 
as  that  of  a  slave  in  Brazil,  whose  one  hour's  work 
will  defray  the  twenty-four  hours'  living.  Asa  reader, 
or  corrector  of  proofs,  a  good  Latin  and  French  scholar 
(like  Goldsmith)  would  always  have  enjoyed  a  pre 
ference,  we  presume,  at  any  eminent  printing-office. 
This  again  would  have  given  him  time  for  looking 
round  ;  or,  he  might  perhaps  have  obtained  the  same 
advantage  for  deliberation  from  some  confidential 
friend's  hospitality.  In  short,  Goldsmith  enjoyed  the 
two  privileges,  one  subjective  —  the  other  objective  — 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  105 

which,  when  uniting  in  the  same  man,  would  prove 
more  than  a  match  for  all  difficulties  that  could  arise 
in  a  literary  career  to  him  who  was  at  once  a  man  of 
genius  so  popular,  of  talents  so  versatile,  of  reading 
so  various,  and  of  opportunities  so  large  for  still  more 
extended  reading.  The  suhjcctive  privilege  lay  in  his 
buoyancy  of  animal  spirits  ;  the  objective  in  his  free 
dom  from  responsibilities.  Goldsmith  wanted  very 
little  more  than  Diogenes  :  now  Diogenes  could  only 
have  been  robbed  of  his  tub:3  which  perhaps  was 
about  as  big  as  most  of  poor  Goldsmith's  sitting-rooms, 
and  far  better  ventilated.  So  that  the  liability  of  these 
two  men,  cynic  and  non-cynic,  to  the  kicks  of  fortune, 
was  pretty  much  on  a  par;  whilst  Goldsmith  had  the 
advantage  of  a  better  temper  for  bearing  them,  though 
certainly  Diogenes  had  the  better  climate  for  soothing 
iiis  temper. 

But  it  may  be  imagined,  that  if  Goldsmith  were 
thus  fortunately  equipped  for  authorship,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  position  of  literature,  as  a  money-making 
resource,  was  in  Goldsmith's  days  less  advantageous 
than  ours.  We  are  not  of  that  opinion  ;  and  the  rep 
resentation  by  which  Mr.  Forstcr  endeavors  to  sustain 
it  seems  to  us  a  showy  but  untenable  refinement.  The 
outline  of  his  argument  is,  that  the  aristocratic  patron 
had,  in  Goldsmith's  day,  by  the  progress  of  society, 
disappeared  ;  he  belonged  to  the  past  —  that  the  mer 
cenary  publisher  had  taken  his  place  —  he  represented 
the  ugly  present  —  but  that  the  great  reading  public 
(that  true  and  equitable  patron,  as  some  fancy)  had 
not  yet  matured  its  means  of  effectual  action  upon 
literature  :  this  reading  public  virtually,  perhaps,  be- 


106  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

longed  to  the  future.  All  this  we  steadfastly  resist. 
No  doubt  the  old  full-blown  patron,  en  grand  costume, 
with  his  heraldic  bearings  emblazoned  at  the  head  of 
the  Dedication,  was  dying  out,  like  the  golden  pippin. 
But  he  still  lingered  in  sheltered  situations.  And  part 
of  the  machinery  by  which  patronage  had  ever  moved, 
viz.  using  influence  for  obtaining  subscriptions,  was 
still  in  capital  working  order  —  a  fact  which  we  know 
from  Goldsmith  himself  (see  the  Enquiry)  ;  for  he 
tells  us  that  a  popular  mode  of  publication  amongst 
bad  authors,  and  certainly  it  needed  no  publisher's 
countersign,  was  by  means  of  subscription  papers : 
upon  which,  as  we  believe,  a  considerable  instalment 
was  usually  paid  down  when  as  yet  the  book  existed 
only  by  way  of  title-page,  supposing  that  the  whole 
sum  were  not  even  paid  up.  Then  as  to  the  publisher 
(a  nuisance,  we  dare  say,  in  all  stages  of  his  Natural 
History),  he  could  not  have  been  a  weed  first  springing 
up  in  Goldsmith's  time,  but  must  always  have  been  an 
indispensable  broker  or  middleman  between  the  author 
and  the  world.  In  the  days  even  of  Horace  and  Mar 
tial  the  book-se//er  (bibliopola)  clearly  acted  as  book- 
publisher.  Amongst  other  passages  proving  this,  and 
showing  undeniably  that  Martial  at  least  had  sold  the 
copyright  of  his  work  to  his  publisher,  is  one  arguing 
pretty  certainly  that  the  price  of  a  gay  drawing-room 
copy  must  have  been  hard  upon  £1.  Us.  6d.  Did  ever 
any  man  hear  the  like  ?  A  New  York  newspaper  would 
have  been  too  happy  to  pirate  the  whole  of  Martial 
had  he  been  three  times  as  big,  and  would  have  en 
gaged  to  drive  the  bankrupt  publisher  into  a  madhouse 
for  twopence.  Now,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  Mar- 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  107 

tial,  a  gay  light-hearted  fellow,  willing  to  let  the  public 
have  his  book  for  a  shilling,  or  perhaps  for  love,  had 
been  the  person  to  put  that  ridiculous  price  upon  it. 
We  may  conclude  that  it  was  the  publisher.  As  to 
the  public,  that  respectable  character  must  always 
have  presided  over  the  true  and  final  court  of  appeal, 
silently  defying  alike  the  prestige  of  patronage  and  the 
intriguing  mysteries  of  publishing.  Lordly  patronage 
might  fill  the  sails  of  one  edition,  and  masterly  pub 
lishing  of  three.  But  the  books  that  ran  contagiously 
through  the  educated  circles,  or  that  lingered  amongst 
them  for  a  generation,  must  have  owed  their  success 
to  the  unbiassed  feelings  of  the  reader  —  not  overawed 
by  authority,  not  mystified  by  artifice.  Varying,  how 
ever,  in  whatever  proportion  as  to  power,  the  three 
possible  parties  to  an  act  of  publication  will  always  be 
seen  intermittingly  at  work  —  the  voluptuous  self- 
indulging  public,  and  the  insidious  publisher,  of  course  ; 
but  even  the  brow-beating  patron  still  exists  in  a  new 
avatar.  Formerly  he  made  his  descent  upon  earth  in 
the  shape  of  Dedicatee  ;  and  it  is  true  that  this  august 
being,  to  whom  dedications  burned  incense  upon  an 
altar,  withdrew  into  sunset  and  twilight  during  Gold 
smith's  period  ;  but  he  still  revisits  the  glimpses  of  the 
moon  in  the  shape  of  author.  When  the  auctoritas  of 
a  peer  could  no  longer  sell  a  book  by  standing  at  the 
head  of  a  dedication,  it  lost  none  of  its  power  when 
standing  on  the  title-page  as  the  author.  Vast  cata 
logues  might  be  composed  of  books  and  pamphlets  that 
have  owed  a  transient  success  to  no  other  cause  on 
earth  than  the  sonorous  title,  or  the  distinguished  posi 
tion  of  those  who  wrote  them.  Ceasing  to  patronize 


108  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

other  people's  books,  the  grandee  1ms  still  power  to 
patronize  his  own.  All  celebrities  have  this  form  of 
patronage.  And,  for  instance,  had  the  boy  Jones4 
(otherwise  called  Inigo  Jones)  possessed  enough  of 
book-making  skill  to  forge  a  plausible  curtain-lecture, 
as  overheard  by  himself  when  concealed  in  Her  Ma 
jesty's  bed-room,  ten  steam-presses  working  day  and 
night  would  not  have  supplied  the  public  demand  ;  and 
even  Her  Majesty  must  herself  have  sent  for  a  large- 
paper  copy,  were  it  only  to  keep  herself  au  courant 
of  English  literature.  In  short,  first,  the  extrinsic 
patronage  of  books ;  secondly,  the  self-patronage  of 
books  in  right  of  their  merits ;  and  thirdly,  the  artifi 
cial  machineries  for  diffusing  the  knowledge  of  their 
existence,  are  three  forces  in  current  literature  that 
ever  have  existed  and  must  exist,  in  some  imperfect 
degree.  Horace  recognises  them  in  his 

'Non.  Di,  non  homines,  non  concessere  columns.' 

The  Di  are  the  paramount  public,  arbitrating  finally 
on  the  fates  of  books,  and  generally  on  some  just 
ground  of  judgment,  though  it  may  be  fearfully  exag 
gerated  on  the  scale  of  importance.  The  homines  arc 
the  publishers  ;  and  a  sad  homo  the  publisher  some 
times  is,  particularly  when  he  commits  insolvency. 
But  the  columntR  are  those  pillars  of  state,  the  grandees 
of  our  own  age,  or  any  other  patrons,  that  support  the 
golden  canopy  of  our  transitory  pomps,  and  thus  shed 
an  alien  glory  of  colored  light  from  above  upon  the 
books  falling  within  that  privileged  area. 

We  are  not  therefore  of  Mr.  Forster's  opinion,  that 
Goldsmith  fell  upon  an  age  less  favorable  to  the  ex- 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  109 

pansion  of  literary  powers,  or  to  the  attainment  of 
literary  distinction,  than  any  other.  The  patron  might 
be  a  tradition  —  hut  the  puhlic  was  not  therefore  a 
prophecy.  My  lord's  trumpets  had  ceased  to  sound, 
but  the  vox  populi  was  not  therefore  mullled.  The 
means  indeed  of  diffusive  advertisement  and  of  rapid 
circulation,  the  combinations  of  readers  into  read 
ing  societies,  and  of  roads  into  iron  net-works, 
were  as  yet  imperfectly  developed.  These  gave  a 
potent  stimulus  to  periodic  literature.  And  a  still  more 
operative  difference  between  ourselves  and  them  is  — 
that  a  new  class  of  people  has  since  then  entered  our 
reading  public,  viz.  —  the  class  of  artisans  and  of  all 
below  the  gentry,  which  (taken  generally)  was  in 
Goldsmith's  day  a  cipher  as  regarded  any  real  en 
couragement  to  literature.  In  our  days,  if  The  Vicar 
of  \Vakefield  had  been  published  as  a  Christmas  tale, 
it  would  have  produced  a  fortune  to  the  writer.  In 
Goldsmith's  time,  few  below  the  gentry  were  readers 
on  any  large  scale.  So  far  there  really  was  a  disad 
vantage.  But  it  was  a  disadvantage  which  applied 
chiefly  to  novels.  The  new  influx  of  readers  in.  our 
times,  the  collateral  afllucnts  into  the  main  stream 
from  the  mechanic  and  provincial  sections  of  our 
population,  which  have  centupled  the  volume  of  the 
original  current,  cannot  be  held  as  telling  favorably 
upon  literature,  or  telling  at  all,  except  in  the  depart 
ments  of  popularized  science,  of  religion,  of  fictitious 
'tales,  and  of  journalism.  To  be  a  reader,  is  no  longer 
as  once  it  was,  to  be  of  a  meditative  turn.  To  be  a 
very  popular  author  is  no  longer  that  honorary  distinc 
tion  which  once  it  might  have  been  amongst  a  more 


110  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

elevated  because  more  select  body  of  readers.  We 
do  not  say  this  invidiously,  or  with  any  special  refer 
ence.  But  it  is  evident  that  writers  and  readers  must 
often  act  and  react  for  reciprocal  degradation.  A 
writer  of  this  day,  either  in  France  or  England,  to  be 
very  popular,  must  be  a  story-teller;  which  is  a  func 
tion  of  literature  neither  very  noble  in  itself,  nor, 
secondly,  tending  to  permanence.  All  novels  what 
ever,  the  best  equally  with  the  worst,  have  faded  almost 
with  the  generation  that  produced  them.  This  is  a 
curse  written  as  a  superscription  above  the  whole  class. 
The  modes  of  combining  characters,  the  particular 
objects  selected  for  sympathy,  the  diction,  and  often 
the  manners,5  hold  up  an  imperfect  mirror  to  any 
generation  that  is  not  their  j>wn.  And  the  reader  of 
novels  belonging  to  an  obsolete  era,  whilst  acknowl 
edging  the  skill  of  the  groupings,  or  the  beauty  of  the 
situations,  misses  the  echo  to  that  particular  revelation 
of  human  nature  which  has  met  him  in  the  social 
aspects  of  his  own  day ;  or  too  often  he  is  perplexed 
by  an  expression  which,  having  dropped  into  a  lower 
use,  disturbs  the  unity  of  the  impression,  or  is  revolted 
by  a  coarse  sentiment,  which  increasing  refinement 
has  made  unsuitable  to  the  sex  or  to  the  rank  of  the 
character.  How  bestial  and  degrading  at  this  day 
seem  many  of  the  scenes  in  Smollett !  How  coarse 
are  the  ideals  of  Fielding!  —  his  odious  Squire  Wes 
tern,  his  odious  Tom  Jones  !  What  a  gallery  of  his 
trionic  masqueraders  is  thrown  open  in  the  novels  of 
Richardson,  powerful  as  they  were  once  found  by  the 
two  leading  nations  of  the  earth.  A  popular  writer, 
therefore,  who,  in  order  to  be  popular,  must  speak 


OLIVER   GOLDSMITH. 

through  novels,  speaks  to  what  is  least  permanpnV  in 
human  sensibilities.  That  is  already  t<»  U>  self-de 
graded.  Secondly,  because  the  FiryreWr ruling  H:tss  is 
by  far  the  most  comprehensive  one,  and  being  such, 
must  count  as  a  large  majority  amongst  its  members 
those  who  are  poor  in  capacities  of  thinking,  and 
are  passively  resigned  to  the  instinct  of  immediate 
pleasure  —  to  these  the  writer  must  chiefly  humble 
himself:  he  must  study  their  sympathies,  must  assume 
them,  must  give  them  back.  In  our  days,  he  must 
give  them  back  even  their  own  street  slang ;  so  servile 
is  the  modern  novelist's  dependence  on  his  canaille  of 
an  audience.  In  France,  amongst  the  Sues,  &c.,  it 
has  been  found  necessary  to  give  back  even  the  closest 
portraits  of  obscene  atrocities  that  shun  the  light,  and 
burrow  only  in  the  charnel-houses  of  vast  manufac 
turing  towns.  Finally,  the  very  principle  of  com 
manding  attention  only  by  the  interest  of  a  tale,  which 
means  the  interest  of  a  momentary  curiosity  that  is  to 
vanish  for  ever  in  a  sense  of  satiation,  and  of  a  mo 
mentary  suspense  that,  having  once  collapsed,  can 
never  be  rekindled,  is  in  itself  a  confession  of  reli 
ance  upon  the  meaner  offices  of  the  mind.  The  result 
from  all  which  is  —  that  to  be  popular  in  the  most 
extensive  walk  of  popularity,  that  is,  as  a  novelist,  a 
writer  must  generally  be  in  a  very  considerable  degree 
self-degraded  by  sycophancy  to  the  lowest  order  of 
minds,  and  cannot  (except  for  mercenary  purposes) 
think  himself  advantageously  placed. 
i^fc^To  have  missed,  therefore,  this  enormous  expansion 
of  the  reading  public,  however  unfortunate  for  Gold 
smith's  purse,  was  a  great  escape  for  his  intellectual 


112  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

purity.  Every  man  has  two-edged  tendencies  lurking 
within  himself,  pointing  in  one  direction  to  what  will 
expand  the  elevating  principles  of  his  nature,  pointing 
in  another  to  what  will  tempt  him  to  its  degradation. 
A  mob  is  a  dreadful  audience  for  chafing  and  irri 
tating  the  latent  vulgarisms  of  the  human  heart. 
Exaggeration  and  caricature,  before  such  a  tribunal, 
become  inevitable,  and  sometimes  almost  a  duty. 
The  genial  but  not  very  delicate  humor  of  Goldsmith 
would  in  such  circumstances  have  slipped,  by  the  most 
natural  of  transitions,  into  buffoonery  ;  the  unaffected 
pathos  of  Goldsmith  would,  by  a  monster  audience, 
have  been  debauched  into  theatrical  sentimentality. 
All  the  motions  of  Goldsmith's  nature  moved  in  the 
direction  of  the  true,  the  natural,  the  sweet,  the  gentle. 
In  the  quiet  times,  politically  speaking,  through  which 
his  course  of  life  travelled,  he  found  a  musical  echo 
to  the  tenor  of  his  own  original  sensibilities  —  in  the 
architecture  of  European  4iistory,  as  it  unfolded  its 
proportions  along  the  line  of  his  own  particular  expe 
rience,  there  was  a  symmetry  with  the  proportions  of 
his  own  unpretending  mind.  Our  revolutionary  ago 
would  have  unsettled  his  brain.  The  colossal  move 
ments  of  nations,  from  within  and  from  without ;  the 
sorrow  of  the  times,  which  searches  so  deeply ;  the 
grandeur  of  the  times,  which  aspires  so  loftily  ;  these 
forces,  acting  for  the  last  fifty  years  by  secret  sym 
pathy  upon  our  fountains  of  thinking  and  impassioned 
speculation,  have  raised  them  from  depths  never 
visited  by  our  fathers,  into  altitudes  too  dizzy  for- 
their  contemplating.  This  generation  and  the  last, 
with  their  dreadful  records,  would  have  untuned  Gold- 


-\ 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  113 

smith  for  writing  in  the  key  that  suited  him  ;  and  us 
they  would  have  untuned  for  understanding  his  music, 
had  we  not  learned  to  understand  it  in  childhood, 
before  the  muttering  hurricanes  in  the  upper  air  had 
begun  to  reach  our  young  ears,  and  forced  them  away 
to  the  thundering  overhead,  from  the  carolling  of  birds 
amongst  earthly  bowers. 

C-  Goldsmith,  therefore,  as  regards  the  political  aspects 
of  his  own  times,  was  fortunately  placed  j  a  thrush  or 
a  nightingale  is  hushed  by  the  thunderings  which  are 
awakening  to  Jove's  eagle.  But  an  author  stands  in 
relation  to  other  influences  than  political ;  and  some 
of  these  are  described  by  Mr.  Forster  as  peculiarly 
unfavorable  to  comfort  and  respectability  at  the  era  of 
Goldsmith's  novitiate  in  literature.  Will  Mr.  Forster 
excuse  us  for  quarrelling  with  his  whole  doctrine  upon 
this  subject  —  a  subject  and  a  doctrine  continually 
forced  upon  our  attention  in  these  days,  by  the  extend 
ing  lines  of  our  own  literary  order,  and  continually 
refreshed  in  warmth  of  coloring  by  the  contrast  as 
regards  social  consideration,  between  our  literary  body 
and  the  corresponding  order  in  France.  The  ques 
tions  arising  have  really  a  general  interest,  as  well  as 
a  special  one,  in  connection  with  Goldsmith;  and 
therefore  we  shall  stir  them  a  little,  not  with  any  view 
of  exhausting  the  philosophy  that  is  applicable  to  the 
case,  but  simply  of  amusing  some  readers  (since 
Pliny's  remark  on  history  is  much  more  true  of  litera 
ture  or  literary  gossip,  viz.,  that  '  quoquo  modo  scripta 
delectat;')  and  with  the  more  ambitious  purpose  of 
recalling  some  other  readers  from  precipitate  conclu- 
8 


114  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH, 

sions  upon  a  subject  where  nearly   all  that   is  most 
plausible  happens  to  be  most  untrue. 

Mr.  Forster,  in  his  views  upon  the  social  rights  of 
literature,  is  »rowing  pretty  nearly  in  the  same  boat  as 
Mr.  Carlyle  in  his  views  upon  the  rights  of  labor. 
Each  denounces,  or  by  implication  denounces,  as  an 
oppression  and  a  nuisance,  what  we  believe  to  be  a 
necessity  inalienable  from  the  economy  and  structure 
of  our  society.  Some  years  ago  Mr.  Carlyle  offended 
us  all  (or  all  of  us  that  were  interested  in  social  phi 
losophy)  by  enlarging  on  a  social  affliction,  which  few 
indeed  needed  to  see  exposed,  but  most  men  would 
have  rejoiced  to  see  remedied,  if  it  were  but  on  paper, 
and  by  way  of  tentative  suggestion.  Precisely  at  that 
point,  however,  where  his  aid  was  invoked,  Mr.  Carlyle 
halted.  So  does  Mr.  Forster  with  regard  to  his  griev 
ance  ;  he  states  it,  and  we  partly  understand  him  —  as 
ancient  Pistol  says  —  'We  hear  him  with  ears;'  and 
when  we  wait  for  him  to  go  on,  saying  — '  Well,  here's 
a  sort  of  evil  in  life,  how  would  you  redress  it  ?  you've 
shown,  or  you've  made  another  hole  in  the  tin-kettle 
of  society ;  how  do  you  propose  to  tinker  it  ?  '  — 
behold  !  he  is  suddenly  almost  silent.  But  this  cannot 
be  allowed.  The  right  to  insist  upon  a  well  known 
grievance  cannot  be  granted  to  that  man  (Mr.  Carlyle, 
for  instance,  or  Mr.  Forster)  who  uses  it  as  matter  of 
blame  and  denunciation,  unless,  at  the  same  time,  he 
points  out  the  methods  by  which  it  could  have  been 
prevented.  He  that  simply  bemoans  an  evil  has  a 
right  to  his  moan,  though  he  should  make  no  preten 
sions  to  a  remedy;  but  he  that  criminates,  that 
imputes  the  evil  as  a  fault,  that  charges  the  evil  upon 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  115 

selfishness  or  neglect  lurking  in  some  alterable  arrange 
ments  of  society,  has  no  right  to  do  so,  unless  he  can 
instantly  sketch  the  remedy  ;  for  the  very  first  step  by 
which  he  could  have  learned  that  the  evil  involved  a 
blame,  the  first  step  that  could  have  entitled  him  to 
denounce  it  as  a  wrong,  must  have  been  that  step 
which  brought  him  within  the  knowledge  (wanting  to 
everybody  else)  that  it  admitted  of  a  cure.  A  wrong 
it  could  not  have  been  even  in  his  eyes,  so  long  as  it 
was  a  necessity,  nor  a  ground  of  complaint  until  the 
cure  appeared  to  him  a  possibility.  And  the  over 
riding  motto  for  these  parallel  speculations  of  Messrs. 
Carlyle  and  Forster,  in  relation  to  the  frailties  of  our 
social  system,  ought  to  have  been  — l  Sanabilibus 
(zgrotamus  jnalis.'  Unless  with  this  watchword  they 
had  no  right  to  commence  their  crusading  march. 
Curable  evils  justify  clamorous  complaints  ;  the  incur 
able  justify  only  prayers. 

Why  it  was  that  Mr.  Carlylc,  in  particular,  halted  so 
steadily  at  the  point  where  his  work  of  love  was  first 
beginning,  it  is  not  difficult  to  guess.  As  the  *  Statutes 
at  large '  have  not  one  word  against  the  liberty  of 
unlicensed  hypothesis,  it  is  conceivable  that  Mr.  C. 
might  have  indulged  a  little  in  that  agreeable  pastime  : 
but  this,  he  was  well  aware,  would  have  brought  him 
in  one  moment  under  the  fire  of  Political  Economy, 
from  the  whole  vast  line  of  its  modern  batteries. 
These  gentlemen,  the  economists,  would  have  torn  to 
ribbons,  within  fifteen  minutes,  any  positive  specula 
tion  for  amending  the  evil.  It  was  better,  therefore, 
to  keep  within  the  trenches  of  the  blank  negative, 
pointing  to  everything  as  wrong  —  horribly  wrong,  but 


116  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

never  hinting  at  the  mysterious  right :  which,  to  this 
day,  we  grieve  to  say,  remains  as  mysterious  as 
ever.6 

Passing  to  Mr.  Forster,  who  (being  capable  of  a 
splendor  so  original)  disappoints  us  most  when  he 
reminds  us  of  Mr.  Carlyle,  by  the  most  disagreeable 
of  that  gentleman's  phraseological  forms ;  and,  in  this 
instance,  by  a  speculation  twin-sister  to  the  economic 
one  just  noticed  ;  we  beg  to  premise  that  in  anything 
here  said,  it  is  far  from  our  wish  to  express  disaffection 
to  the  cause  of  our  literary  brothers.  We  grudge 
them  nothing  that  they  are  ever  likely  to  get.  We 
wish  even  that  the  House  of  Commons  would  see 
cause  for  creating  major ats  in  behalf  of  us  all ;  only 
whispering  in  the  ear  of  that  honorable  House  to 
appoint  a  Benjamin's  portion  to  ourselves,  as  the  parties 
who  suggested  the  idea.  But  what  is  the  use  of  benev 
olently  bequeathing  larks  for  dinner  to  all  literary 
men,  in  all  time  coming,  if  the  sky  must  fall  before 
they  can  bag  our  bequest  ?  We  shall  discuss  Mr. 
Forster's  views,  not  perhaps  according  to  any  arrange 
ment  of  his,  but  according  to  the  order  in  which  they 
come  back  to  our  own  remembrance. 

Goldsmith's  period,  Mr.  F.  thinks,  was  bad  —  not 
merely  by  the  transitional  misfortune  (before  noticed) 
of  coming  too  late  for  the  patron,  and  too  soon  for  the 
public,  (which  is  the  compound  ill-luck  of  being  a  day 
after  one  fair,  and  a  month  too  soon  for  the  next,)  — 
but  also  by  some  co-operation  in  this  evil  destiny 
through  misconduct  on  the  part  of  authors  themselves 
(p.  70.)  Not  'the  circumstances'  only  of  authors 
were  damaged,  but  the  'literary  character'  itself. 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  117 

We  are  sorry  to  hear  that.  But,  as  long  as  they  did 
not  commit  murder,  we  have  a  great  indulgence  for 
the  frailties  of  authors.  If  ever  the  '  benefit  of  clergy' 
could  be  fairly  pleaded,  it  might  have  been  by  Grub 
Street  for  petty  larceny.  The  'clergy'  they  surely 
could  have  pleaded ;  and  the  call  for  larceny  was  so 
audible  in  their  condition,  that  in  them  it  might  be 
called  an  instinct  of  self-preservation,  which  surely 
was  not  implanted  in  man  to  be  disobeyed.  One  word 
allow  us  to  say  on  these  three  topics :  —  1.  The  con 
dition  of  the  literary  body  in  its  hard-working  section 
at  the  time  when  Goldsmith  belonged  to  it.  2.  Upon 
the  condition  of  that  body  in  England  as  compared 
with  that  of  the  corresponding  body  in  France.  3. 
Upon  the  condition  of  the  body  in  relation  to  patron 
age  purely  political. 

1.  The  pauperized  (or  Grub  Street)  section  of  the 
literary  body,  at  the  date  of  Goldsmith's  taking  service 
amongst  it,  was  (in  Mr.  Forster's  estimate)  at  its  very 
lowest  point  of  depression.  And  one  comic  presump 
tion  in  favor  of  that  notion  we  ourselves  remember; 
viz.  tbat  Smart,  the  prose  translator  of  Horace,  and  a 
well-built  scholar,  actually  lei  himself  out  to  a  monthly 
journal  on  a  regular  lease  of  ninety-nine  years.7  What 
could  move  the  rapacious  publisher  to  draw  the  lease 
for  this  monstrous  term  of  years,  we  cannot  conjec 
ture.  Surely  the  villain  might  have  been  content  with 
threescore  years  and  ten.  But  think,  reader,  of  poor 
Smart  two  years  after,  upon  another  publisher's  apply 
ing  to  him  vainly  for  contributions,  and  angrily 
demanding  what  possible  objection  could  be  made  to 
offers  so  liberal,  being  reduced  to  answer  —  l  No  objec- 


118  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

tion,  sir,  whatever,  except  an  unexpired  term  of  ninety- 
seven  years  yet  to  run.'  The  bookseller  saw  that  he 
must  not  apply  again  in  that  century  ;  and,  in  fact, 
Smart  could  no  longer  let  himself,  but  must  be  sublet 
(if  let  at  all)  by  the  original  lessee.  Query  now  — 
was  Smart  entitled  to  vote  as  a  freeholder,  and  Smart's 
children  (if  any  were  born  during  the  currency  of 
the  lease)  would  they  be  serfs,  and  ascripti  prelo  ? 
Goldsmith's  own  terms  of  self-conveyance  to  Griffiths 
—  the  terms  we  mean  on  which  he  4  conveyed  '  his  per 
son  and  free-agency  to  the  uses  of  the  said  Griffiths 
(or  his  assigns  ?)  — do  not  appear  to  have  been  much 
more  dignified  than  Smart's  in  the  quality  of  the  con 
ditions,  though  considerably  so  in  the  duration  of  the 
term  ;  Goldsmith's  lease  being  only  for  one  year,  and 
not  for  ninety-nine,  so  that  he  had  (as  the  reader  per 
ceives)  a  clear  ninety-eight  years  at  his  own  disposal. 
We  suspect  that  poor  Oliver,  in  his  guileless  heart, 
never  congratulated  himself  on  having  made  a  more 
felicitous  bargain.  Indeed,  it  was  not  so  bad,  if  every 
thing  be  considered  ;  Goldsmith's  situation  at  the  time 
was  bad  ;  and  for  that  very  reason  the  lease  (otherwise 
monstrous)  was  not  bad.  He  was  to  have  lodging, 
board,  and  'a  small  salary,'  very  small,  we  suspect; 
and  in  return  for  all  these  blessings,  he  had  nothing  to 
do,  but  to  sit  still  at  a  table,  to  work  hard  from  an 
early  hour  in  the  morning  until  2  P.  M.  (at  which  ele 
gant  hour  we  presume  that  the  parenthesis  of  dinner 
occurred,)  but  also  —  which,  not  being  an  article  in  the 
lease,  might  have  set  aside,  on  a  motion  before  the 
King's  Bench  —  to  endure  without  mutiny  the  correc 
tion  and  revisal  of  all  his  MSS.  by  Mrs.  Griffiths, 


OLIVER   GOLDSMITH.  119 

wife  to  Dr.  G.  the  lessee.  This  affliction  of  Mrs.  Dr. 
G.  surmounting  his  shoulders,  and  controlling  his  pen, 
seems  to  us  not  at  all  less  dreadful  than  that  of  Sinbad 
when  indorsed  with  the  old  man  of  the  sea ;  and  we, 
in  Goldsmith's  place,  should  certainly  have  tried  how 
far  Sinbad's  method  of  abating  the  nuisance  had  lost 
its  efficacy  by  time,  viz.  the  tempting  our  oppressor  to 
get  drunk  once  or  twice  a  day,  and  then  suddenly 
throwing  Mrs.  Dr.  G.  off  her  perch.  From  that '  bad 
eminence,1  which  she  had  audaciously  usurped,  what 
harm  could  there  be  in  thus  dismounting  'this  l  old 
woman  of  the  sea  ?'  And  as  to  an  occasional  thump 
or  so  on  the  head,  which  Mrs.  Dr.  G.  might  have 
caught  in  tumbling,  that  was  her  look-out ;  and  might 
besides  have  improved  her  style.  For  really  now  if, 
the  candid  reader  will  believe  us,  we  know  a  case,  odd 
certainly  but  very  true,  where  a  young  man,  an  author 
by  trade,8  who  wrote  pretty  well,  happening  to  tumble 
out  of  a  first-floor  in  London,  was  afterwards  observed 
to  grow  very  perplexed  and  almost  unintelligible  in  his 
style  ;  until  some  years  later,  having  the  good  fortune 
(like  Wallenstein  at  Vienna)  to  tumble  out  of  a  two-pair 
of  stairs  window,  he  slightly  fractured  his  skull,  but  on 
the  other  hand,  recovered  the  brilliancy  of  his  long 
fractured  style.  Some  people  there  are  of  our  ac 
quaintance  who  would  need  to  tumble  out  of  the  attic 
story  before  they  could  seriously  improve  their  style. 

Certainly  these  conditions  —  the  hard  work,  the  being 
chained  by  the  leg  to  the  writing-table,  and  above  all 
the  having  one's  pen  chained  to  that  of  Mrs.  Dr.  Grif 
fiths,  do  seem  to  countenance  Mr.  F.'s  idea,  that  Gold 
smith's  period  was  the  purgatory  of  authors.  And  we 


120  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

freely  confess  —  that  excepting  Smart's  ninety-nine 
years'  lease,  or  the  contract  between  the  Devil  and  Dr. 
Faustus,-  we  never  heard  of  a  harder  bargain  driven 
with  any  literary  man.  Smart,  Faustus,  and  Goldsmith, 
were  clearly  overreached.  Yet  after  all,  \vas  this  treat 
ment  in  any  important  point  (excepting  as  regards  Dr. 
Faustus)  worse  than  that  given  to  the  whole  college  of 
Grub  Street,  in  the  days  of  Pope  ?  The  first  edition 
of  the  Dunciad  dates  from  1727 :  Goldsmith's  matri- 
calculation  in  Grub  Street  dates  from  1757  —  just  thirty 
years  later  ;  which  is  one  generation.  And  it  is  im 
portant  to  remember  that  Goldsmith,  at  this  time  in  his 
twenty-ninth  year,  was  simply  an  usher  at  an  obscure 
boarding-school ;  had  never  practised  writing  for  the 
press  ;  and  had  not  even  himself  any  faith  at  all  in 
his  own  capacity  for  writing.  It  is  a  singular  fact, 
which  we  have  on  Goldsmith's  own  authority,  that  until 
his  thirtieth  year  (that  is,  the  year  he  spent  with  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  Griffiths)  it  never  entered  into  his  head  that 
literature  was  his  natural  vocation.  That  vanity,  which 
has  been  so  uncandidly  and  sometimes  so  falsely  attrib 
uted  to  Goldsmith,  was  compatible,  we  see,  if  at  all  it 
existed,  with  the  humblest  estimate  of  himself.  Still, 
however  much  this  deepens  our  regard  for  a  man  of  so 
much  genius  united  with  so  much  simplicity  and  unas- 
sumingness,  humility  would  not  be  likely  to  raise  his 
salary  ;  and  we  must  nqjt  forget  that  his  own  want  of 
self-esteem  would  reasonably  operate  on  the  terms 
offered  by  Griffiths.  A  man,  who  regarded  himself  as 
little  more  than  an  amanuensis,  could  not  expect  much 
better  wages  than  an  under-gardencr,  which  perhaps 
he  had.  And,  weighing  all  this,  we  see  little  to  have 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  121 

altered  in  the  lease — that  was  fair  enongh  ;  only  as 
regarded  the  execution  of  the  lease,  we  really  must 
have  protested,  under  any  circumstances,  against  Mrs. 
Doctor  Griffiths.  That  woman  would  have  broken  the 
back  of  a  camel,  which  must  be  supposed  tougher  than 
the  heart  of  an  usher.  There  we  should  have  made  a 
ferocious  stand  ;  and  should  have  struck  for  much 
higher  wages,  before  we  could  have  brought  our  mind 
to  think  of  capitulation.  It  is  remarkable,  however, 
that  this  year  of  humble  servitude  was  not  only  (or,  as 
if  by  accident)  the  epoch  of  Goldsmith's  intellectual 
development,  but  also  the  occasion  of  it.  Nay,  if  all 
were  known,  perhaps  it  may  have  been  to  Mrs.  Doctor 
Griffiths  in  particular,  that  we  owe  that  revolution  in 
his  self-estimation  which  made  Goldsmith  an  author 
by  deliberate  choice.  Hag-ridden  every  day,  he  must 
have  plunged  and  kicked  violently  to  break  loose  from 
this  harness  ;  but,  not  impossibly,  the  very  effort  of 
contending  with  the  hag,  when  brought  into  collision 
with  his  natural  desire  to  soothe  the  hag,  and  the  inev 
itable  counter-impulse  in  any  continued  practice  of 
composition,  towards  the  satisfaction  at  the  same  time 
of  his  own  reason  and  taste,  must  have  furnished  a 
most  salutary  palcestra  for  the  education  of  his  literary 
powers.  When  one  lives  at  Rome,  one  must  do  as 
they  do  at  Rome  :  when  one  lives  with  a  hag,  one 
must  accommodate  oneself  to  haggish  caprices ;  be 
sides,  that  once  in  a  month  the  hag  might  be  right  ;  or 
if  not,  and  supposing  her  always  in  the  wrong,  which 
perhaps  is  too  much  to  assume  even  of  Mrs.  Dr.  G., 
that,  would  but  multiply  the  difficulties  of  reconciling 
her  demands  with  the  demands  of  the  general  reader 


122  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

and  of  Goldsmith's  own  judgment.  And  in  the  pres 
sure  of  these  difficulties  would  lie  the  very  value  of  this 
rough  Spartan  education.  Rope-dancing  cannot  be 
very  agreeable  in  its  elementary  lessons  ;  but  it  must 
be  a  capital  process  for  calling  out  the  agilities  that 
slumber  in  a  man's  legs. 

Still,  though  these  hardships  turned  out  so  benefici 
ally  to  Goldsmith's  intellectual  interests,  and,  conse 
quently,  so  much  to  the  advantage  of  all  who  have 
since  delighted  in  his  works,  not  the  less  on  that  ac 
count  they  were  hardships,  arrd  hardships  that  imposed 
heavy  degradation.  So  far,  therefore,  they  would  seem 
to  justify  Mr.  Forster's  characterization  of  Goldsmith's 
period  by  comparison  with  Addison's  period9  on  the 
one  side,  and  our  own  on  the  other.  But,  on  better 
examination,  it  will  be  found  that  this  theory  is  sus 
tained  only  by  an  unfair  selection  of  the  antithetic 
objects  in  the  comparison.  Compare  Addison's  age 
generally  with  Goldsmith's  —  authors,  prosperous  or 
unprosperous,  in  each  age  taken  indiscriminately  — 
and  the  two  ages  will  be  found  to  offer  i  much  of  a 
muchness.'  But,  if  you  take  the  paupers  of  one  gene 
ration  to  contrast  with  the  grandees  of  another,  how  is 
there  any  justice  in  the  result  ?  Goldsmith  at  starting 
was  a  penniless  man.  Except  by  random  accidents, 
he  had  not  money  enough  to  buy  a  rope,  in  case  he 
had  fancied  himself  in  want  of  such  a  thing.  Addison, 
on  the  contrary,  was  the  son  of  a  tolerably  rich  man ; 
lived  gaily  at  a  most  aristocratic  college  (Magdalen), 
in  a  most  aristocratic  university  ;  formed  early  and 
brilliant  connections  with  the  political  party  that  were 
magnificently  preponderant  until  the  last  four  years  of 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  123 

Queen  Anne  ;  travelled  on  the  Continent,  not  as  a 
pedestrian  mendicant,  housing  with  owls,  and  thankful 
for  the  bounties  of  a  village  fair,  but  with  the  appoint 
ments  and  introduction  of  a  young  nobleman  ;  and 
became  a  secretary  of  state,  not  by  means  of  his 
'delicate  humor,'  as  Mr.  Forster  chooses  to  suppose, 
but  through  splendid  patronage,  and  (speaking  Hiber- 
nice)  through  a  l  strong  back.'  His  bad  verses,  his 
Blenheim,  his  Cato,  in  later  days,  and  other  rubbish, 
had  been  the  only  part  of  his  works  that  aided  his  rise ; 
and  even  these  would  have  availed  him  little,  had  he 
not  originally  possessed  a  locus  standi,  from  which  he 
could  serve  his  artilleries  of  personal  flatteries  with 
commanding  effect,  and  could  profit  by  his  successes. 
As  to  the  really  exquisite  part  of  his  writings,  that  did 
him  no  yeoman's  service  at  all,  nor  could  have  done ; 
for  he  was  a  made  man,  and  had  almost  received 
notice  to  quit  this  world  of  prosperous  whiggery, 
before  he  had  finished  those  exquisite  prose  miscella 
nies.  Pope,  Swift,  Gay,  Prior,  &c.  all  owed  their 
social  positions  to  early  accidents  of  good  connections 
and  sometimes  of  luck,  which  would  not  indeed  have 
supplied  the  place  of  personal  merit,  but  which  gave 
lustre  and  effect  to  merit  where  it  existed  in  strength. 
There  were  authors  quite  as  poor  as  Goldsmith  in  the 
Addisonian  age  ;  there  were  authors  quite  as  rich  as 
Pope,  Steele,  &,c.  in  Goldsmith's  age,  and  having  the 
same  social  standing.  Goldsmith  struggled  with  so 
much  distress,  not  because  his  period  was  more  inau 
spicious,  but  because  his  connections  and  starting 
advantages  were  incomparably  less  important.  His 


1S4  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

profits  were  so  trivial,  because  bis  capital  was  next  to 
none. 

So  far,  as  regards  tbe  comparison  between  Gold 
smith's  age  and  tbe  one  immediately  before  it.  But 
now,  as  regards  tbe  comparison  with  our  own,  removed 
by  two  generations  —  can  it  be  said  truly  that  the  lite 
rary  profession  has  risen  in  estimation,  or  is  rising  ? 
There  is  a  difficulty  in  making  such  an  appraisement; 
and  from  different  minds  there  would  proceed  very 
different  appraisements  ;  and  even  from  the  same 
mind,  surveying  tbe  case  at  different  stations.  For, 
on  the  one  hand,  if  a  greater  breadth  of  social  respect 
ability  catches  the  eye  on  looking  carelessly  over  the 
body  of  our  modern  literati,  which  may  be  owing 
chiefly  to  the  large  increase  of  gentlemen  that  in  our 
day  have  entered  the  field  of  literature  ;  on  the  other 
band,  the  hacks  and  handicraftsmen  whom  the  shallow 
education  of  newspaper  journalism  has  introduced  to 
the  press,  and  whom  poverty  compels  to  labors  not 
meriting  the  name  of  literature,  are  correspondingly 
expanding  their  files.  There  is,  however,  one  reason 
from  analogy,  which  may  incline  us  to  suppose  that  a 
higher  consideration  is  now  generally  conceded  to  the 
purposes  of  literature,  and,  consequently,  a  juster  esti 
mate  made  of  the  persons  who  minister  to  those  pur 
poses.  Literature  —  provided  we  use  that  word  not 
for  the  mere  literature  of  knowledge,  but  for  the  lite 
rature  of  power  —  using  it  for  literature  as  it  speaks 
to  what  is  genial  in  man,  viz. — to  the  human  spirit, 
and  not  for  literature  (falsely  so  called)  as  it  speaks  to 
the  meagre  understanding  —  is  a  fine  art;  and  not  only 
so,  it  is  the  supreme  of  the  fine  arts  ;  nobler,  for 


OLIVER   GOLDSn-  125 


instance,  potentially,  than  painting,  or  sculpture,  or 
architecture.  Now  all  the  fine  arts,  that  popularly  are 
called  SMC/*,  have  risen  in  esteem  within  the  last  gene 
ration.  The  most  aristocratic  of  men  will  now  ask 
into  his  own  society  an  artist,  whom  fifty  years  ago  he 
would  have  transferred  to  the  house-steward's  table. 
And  why  ?  Not  simply  because  more  attention  hav 
ing  been  directed  to  the  arts,  more  notoriety  has  gath 
ered  about  the  artist ;  for  that  sort  of  eclat  would  not 
work  any  durable  change  ;  but  it  is  because  the  inter 
est  in  the  arts  having  gradually  become  much  more 
of  an  enlightened  interest,  the  public  has  been  slowly 
trained  to  fix  its  attention  upon  the  intellect  which  is 
presupposed  in  the  arts,  rather  than  upon  the  offices  of 
pleasure  to  which  they  minister.  The  fine  arts  have 
now  come  to  be  regarded,  rather  as  powers  that  are  to 
mould,  than  as  luxuries  that  are  to  embellish.  And  it 
has  followed  that  artists  are  valued  more  by  the  elabo 
rate  agencies  which  they  guide,  than  by  the  fugitive 
sensations  of  wonder  or  sympathy  which  they  evoke. 

Now  this  is  a  change  honorable  to  both  sides.  The 
public  has  altered  its  estimate  of  certain  men  ;  and 
yet  has  not  been  able  to  do  so,  without  previously  en 
larging  its. idea  of  the  means  through  which  those  men 
operate.  It  could  not  elevate  the  men,  without  previ 
ously  elevating  itself.  But,  if  so,  then,  in  correcting 
their  appreciation  of  the  fine  arts,  the  public  must  si 
multaneously  have  corrected  their  appreciation  of  lite 
rature;  because  whether  men  have  or  have  not  been  in 
the  habit  of  regarding  literature  as  a  fine  art,  this  they 
must  have  felt,  viz.,  that  literature,  in  its  more  genial 
functions,  works  by  the  very  same  organs  as  the  liberal 


126  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

arts,  speaks  to  the  same  heart,  operates  through  the 
same  compound  nature,  and  educates  the  same  deep 
sympathies  with  mysterious  ideals  of  beauty.  There 
lies  the  province  of  the  arts  usually  acknowledged  as 
fine  or  liberal  :  there  lies  the  province  of  fine  or  liberal 
literature.  And  with  justifiable  pride  a  litterateur  may 
say  —  that  his  fine  art  wields  a  sceptre  more  potent 
than  any  other ;  literature  is  more  potent  than  other 
fine  arts,  because  deeper  in  its  impressions  according 
to  the  usual  tenor  of  human  sensibilities;  because 
more  extensive,  in  the  degree  that  books  are  more 
diffused  than  pictures  or  statues  ;  because  more  dura 
ble,  in  the  degree  that  language  is  durable  beyond 
marble  or  canvas,  and  in  the  degree  that  vicarious 
powers  are  opened  to  books  for  renewing  their  phoenix 
immortality  through  unlimited  translations:  powers 
denied  to  painting  except  through  copies  that  are 
feeble,  and  denied  to  sculpture  except  to  casts  that  are 
costly. 

We  infer  that,  as  the  fine  arts  have  been  rising, 
literature  (on  the  secret  feeling  that  essentially  it 
moves  by  the  same  powers)  must  also  have  been 
rising;  that,  as  the  arts  will  continue  to  rise,  literature 
will  continue  to  rise  ;  and  that,  in  both  cases,  the  men, 
the  ministers,  must  ascend  in  social  consideration  as 
the  things,  the  ministrations,  ascend.  But  there  is 
another  form,  in  which  the  same  result  offers  itself  to 
our  notice  ;  and  this  should  naturally  be  the  last  para 
graph  in  this  section  1,  but,  as  we  have  little  room  to 
spare,  it  may  do  equally  well  as  the  first  paragraph  in 
section  2,  viz.,  on  the  condition  of  our  own  literary 
body  by  comparison  with  the  same  body  in  France. 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  127 

2.  Who  were  the  people  amongst  ourselves,  that, 
throughout  the  eighteenth  century,  chiefly  came  for 
ward  as  undervaluers  of  literature  ?  They  belonged 
to  two  very  different  classes  —  the  aristocracy  and  the 
commercial  body,  who  agreed  in  the  thing,  but  on 
very  different  impulses.  To  the  mercantile  man,  the 
author  was  an  object  of  ridicule,  from  natural  poverty  ; 
natural,  because  there  was  no  regular  connection  be 
tween  literature  and  any  mode  of  money-making.  By 
accident  the  author  might  not  be  poor,  but  profession 
ally,  or  according  to  any  obvious  opening  for  an  income, 
he  was.  Poverty  was  the  badge  of  all  his  tribe.  Amongst 
the  aristocracy,  the  instinct  of  contempt,  or  at  least  of 
slight  regard  towards  literature,  was  supported  by  the 
irrelation  of  literature  to  the  state.  Aristocracy  itself 
was  the  flower  and  fruitage  of  the  state ;  a  nobility 
was  possible  only  in  the  ratio  of  the  grandeur  and 
magnificence  developed  for  social  results  ;  so  that  a 
poor  and  unpopulous  nation  cannot  create  a  great  aris 
tocracy  :  the  flower  and  foliation  must  be  in  relation 
to  the  stem  and  the  radix  out  of  which  they  germinate. 
Inevitably,  therefore,  a  nobility  so  great  as  the  English 
—  that  not  in  pride,  but  in  the  mere  logic  of  its  politi 
cal  relations,  felt  its  order  to  be  a  sort  of  heraldic 
shield,  charged  with  the  trophies  and  ancestral  glories 
of  the  nation — could  not  but  in  its  public  scale  of 
appreciation  estimate  every  profession  and  rank  of 
men  by  the  mode  of  their  natural  connection  with 
the  state.  Law  and  arms,  for  instance,  were  honored, 
not  because  any  capricious  precedent  had  been  estab 
lished  of  a  title  to  public  honor  in  favor  of  those  pro 
fessions,  but  because,  through  their  essential  functions, 


I 


128  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

they  opened  for  themselves  a  permanent  necessity  of 
introsusception  into  the  organism  of  the  state.  A  great 
law  officer,  a  great  military  leader,  a  popular  admiral, 
is  already,  by  virtue  of  his  functions,  a  noble  in  men's 
account,  whether  you  gave  or  refused  him  a  title  ;  and 
in  such  cases  it  has  always  been  the  policy  of  an  aris 
tocratic  state  to  confer,  or  even  impose  the  title,  lest 
the  disjunction  of  the  virtual  nobility  from  the  titular 
should  gradually  disturb  the  estimate  of  the  latter. 
But  literature,  by  its  very  grandeur,  is  degraded  soci 
ally  ;  for  its  relations  are  essentially  cosmopolitan,  or, 
speaking  more  strictly,  not  cosmopolitan,  which  might 
mean  to  all  other  peoples  considered  as  national  states, 
whereas  literature  has  no  relation  to  any  sections  or 
social  schisms  amongst  men  —  its  relations  are  to  the 
race.  In  proportion  as  any  literary  work  rises  in  its 
pretensions ;  for  instance,  if  it  works  by  the  highest 
forms  of  passion,  its  nisus,  its  natural  effort  is  to 
address  the  race,  and  not  any  individual  nation.  That 
it  found  a  bar  to  this  nisus,  in  a  limited  language,  was 
but  an  accident :  the  essential  relations  of  every  great 
intellectual  work  are  to  those  capacities  in  man  by 
which  he  tends  to  brotherhood,  and  not  to  those  by 
which  he  tends  to  alienation.  Man  is  ever  corning 
nearer  to  agreement,  ever  narrowing  his  differences, 
notwithstanding  that  the  interspace  may  cost  an  eter 
nity  to  traverse.  Where  the  agreement  is,  not  where 
the  difference  is,  in  the  centre  of  man's  affinities,  not 
of  his  repulsions,  there  lies  the  magnetic  centre  towards 
which  all  poetry  that  is  potent,  and  all  philosophy 
that  is  faithful,  are  eternally  travelling  by  natural  ten 
dency.  Consequently,  if  indirectly  literature  may  hold 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  129 

a  patriotic  value  as  a  gay  plumage  in  the  cap  of  a 
nation,  directly,  and,  by  a  far  deeper  tendency,  litera 
ture  is  essentially  alien.  A  poet,  a  book,  a  system  of 
religion,  belongs  to  the  nation  best  qualified  for  appre 
ciating  their  powers,  and  not  to  the  nation  that,  per 
haps  by  accident,  gave  them  birth.  How,  then,  is  it 
wonderful  that  an  intense  organ  of  the  social  prin 
ciple  in  a  nation,  viz.,  a  nobility,  should  fail,  in  their 
professional  character,  to  rate  highly,  or  even  to  recog 
nise,  as  having  any  proper  existence,  a  fine  art  which 
is  by  tendency  anti-social  (anti-social  in  this  sense, 
that  what  it  seeks,  it  seeks  by  transcending  all  social 
barriers  and  separations)  ?  Yet  it  is  remarkable  that 
in  England,  where  the  aristocracy  for  three  centuries 
(16th,  17th,  18th)  paid  so  little  honor,  in  their  public 
or  corporate  capacity,  to  literature,  privately  they  hon 
ored  it  with  a  rare  courtesy.  That  same  grandee, 
who  would  have  looked  upon  Camden,  Ben  Jonson, 
Selden,  or  Hobbes,  as  an  audacious  intruder,  if  occu 
pying  any  prominent  station  at  a  state  festival,  would 
have  received  him  with  a  kind  of  filial  reverence  in 
his  own  mansion  ;  for  in  this  place,  as  having  no 
national  reference,  as  sacred  to  hospitality,  which 
regards  the  human  tie,  and  not  the  civic  tie,  he  would 
be  at  liberty  to  regard  the  man  of  letters  in  his  cos 
mopolitan  character.  And  on  the  same  instinct,  a 
prince  in  the  very  meanest  State,  would,  in  a  state- 
pageant  commemorating  the  national  honors,  assign 
a  distinguished  place  to  the  national  high  admiral, 
though  he  were  the  most  stupid  of  men,  and  would 
utterly  neglect  the  stranger  Columbus.  But  in  his 
own  palace,  and  at  his  own  table,  he  would  perhaps 
9 


130  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

invert   this    order   of   precedency,    and   would    place 
Columbus  at  his  own  right  hand. 

Some  such  principle,  as  is  here  explained,  did 
certainly  prevail  in  the  practice  (whether  consciously 
perceived  or  not  in  the  philosophy)  of  that  England, 
which  extended  through  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.  First,  in  the  eighteenth  century  all  honor 
to  literature,  under  any  relation,  began  to  give  way. 
And  why  ?  Because  expanding  politics,  expanding 
partisanship,  and  expanding  journalism,  then  first 
called  into  the  field  of  literature  an  inferior  class  of 
laborers.  Then  first  it  was  that,  from  the  noblest  of 
professions,  literature  became  a  trade.  Literature  it 
was  that  gave  the  first  wound  to  literature  ;  the  hack 
scribbler  it  was  that  first  degraded  the  lofty  literary 
artist.  For  a  century  and  a  half  we  have  lived  under 
the  shade  of  this  fatal  revolution.  But,  however  pain 
ful  such  a  state  of  things  may  be  to  the  keen  sensi 
bilities  of  men  pursuing  the  finest  of  vocations  — 
carrying  forward  as  inheritors  from  past  generations 
the  eternal  chase  after  truth,  and  power,  and  beauty  — 
still  we  must  hold  that  the  dishonor  to  literature  has 
issued  from  internal  sources  proper  to  herself,  and 
not  from  without.  The  nobility  of  England  have,  for 
three  and  a  half  centuries,  personally  practised  litera 
ture  as  an  elevated  accomplishment  :  our  royal  and 
noble  authors  are  numerous  ;  and  they  would  have 
continued  the  same  cordial  attentions  to  the  literary 
body,  had  that  body  maintained  the  same  honorable 
composition.  But  a  litterateur,  simply  as  such,  it  is 
no  longer  safe  to  distinguish  with  favor  ;  once,  but,  not 
now,  he  was  liable  to  no  misjudgment.  Once  he  was 


• 

OLIVER   GOLDSMITH.  131 

pretty  sure  to  be  a  man  of  some  genius,  or,  at  the 
least,  of  unusual  scholarship.  Now,  on  the  contrary, 
a  mob  of  traitors  have  mingled  with  the  true  men  ; 
and  the  loyal  perish  with  the  disloyal,  because  it  is 
impossible  in  a  mob,  so  vast  and  fluctuating,  for  the 
artillery  of  avenging  scorn  to  select  its  victims. 

All  this,  bitter  in  itself,  has  become  more  bitter  from 
the  contrast  furnished  by  France.  We  know  that 
literature  has  long  been  misappreciatcd  amongst  our 
selves.  In  France  it  has  long  been  otherwise  appre 
ciated —  more  advantageously  appreciated.  And  we 
infer  that  therefore  it  is  in  France  more  wisely  appre 
ciated.  But  this  does  not  follow.  We  have  ever  been 
of  opinion  that  the  valuation  of  literature  in  France, 
or  at  least  of  current  literature,  and  as  it  shows  itself 
in  the  treatment  of  literary  men,  is  unsound,  extrava 
gant,  and  that  it  rests  upon  a  basis  originally  false. 
Simply  to  have  been  the  translator  from  the  English 
of  some  prose  book,  a  history  or  a  memoir,  neither 
requiring  nor  admitting  any  display  of  mastery  over 
the  resources  of  language,  conferred,  throughout  the 
eighteenth  century,  so  advantageous  a  position  in 
society  upon  one  whom  we  English  should  view  as  a 
literary  scrub  or  mechanic  drudge,  that  we  really  had 
a  right  to  expect  the  laws  of  France  and  the  court 
ceremonies  to  reflect  this  feature  of  public  manners. 
Naturally,  for  instance,  any  man  honored  so  prepos 
terously  ought  in  law  to  have  enjoyed,  in  right  of  his 
book,  ihejus  triiim  liberorum,  and  perpetual  immunity 
from  taxes.  Or  again,  as  regards  ceremonial  honors, 
on  any  fair  scale  of  proportions,  it  was  reasonable  to 
expect  that  to  any  man  who  had  gone  into  a  fourth 


132  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

edition,  the  royal  sentinels  should  present  arms ;  that 
to  the  author  of  a  successful  tragedy,  the  guard  should 
everywhere  turn  out ;  and  that  an  epic  poet,  if  ever 
such  a  difficult  birth  should  make  its  epiphany  in  Paris, 
must  look  to  have  his  approach  towards  a  soiree 
announced  by  a  salvo  of  a  hundred  and  one  guns. 

Our  space  will  not  allow  us  to  go  into  the  illustrative 
details  of  this  monstrous  anomaly  in  French  society. 
We  confine  ourselves  to  its  cause  —  as  sufficiently 
explaining  why  it  is  that  no  imitation  of  such  absurdi 
ties  can  or  ought  to  prosper  in  England.  The  same 
state  of  things,  under  a  different  modification,  takes 
place  in  Germany  ;  and  from  the  very  same  cause. 
Is  it  not  monstrous,  or  was  it  not  until  within  recent 
days,  to  find  every  German  city  drawing  the  pedantic 
materials,  and  the  pedantic  interest  of  its  staple  con 
versation  from  the  systems  and  the  conflicts  of  a  few 
rival  academic  professors  ?  Generally  these  para 
mount  lords  of  German  conversation,  that  swayed  its 
movements  this  way  or  that,  as  a  lively  breeze  sways 
a  cornfield,  were  metaphysicians  ;  Fichte,  for  in 
stance,  and  Hegel.  These  were  the  arid  sands  that 
bibulously  absorbed  all  the  perennial  gushings  of  Ger 
man  enthusiasm.  France  of  the  last  century  and  the 
modern  Germany  were,  as  to  this  point,  on  the  same 
level  of  foolishness.  But  France  had  greatly  the  ad 
vantage  in  point  of  liberality.  For  general  literature 
furnishes  topics  a  thousand  times  more  graceful  and 
fitted  to  blend  with  social  pleasure,  than  the  sapless 
problems  of  ontological  systems  meant  only  for  scho 
lastic  use. 

But  what  then  was  the  cause  of  this  social  dcfor- 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  133 

mity  ?  Why  was  literature  allowed  eventually  to 
disfigure  itself  by  disturbing  the  natural  currents  of 
conversation,  to  make  itself  odious  by  usurpation,  and 
thus  virtually  to  operate  as  a  mode  of  pedantry  ?  It 
was  because  in  neither  land  had  the  people  any  power 
of  free  discussion.  It  was  because  every  question 
growing  out  of  religion,  or  connecting  itself  with 
laws,  or  with  government,  or  with  governors,  with 
political  interests  or  political  machineries,  or  with 
judicial  courts,  was  an  interdicted  theme.  The  mind 
sought  in  despair  for  some  free  area  wide  enough  to 
allow  of  boundless  openings  for  individualities  of  sen 
timent  —  human  enough  to  sustain  the  interests  of 
festive  discussion.  That  open  area  was  found  in 
books.  In  Paris  to  talk  of  politics  was  to  talk  of  the 
king ;  I'etat  c*est  moi ;  to  talk  of  the  king  in  any 
spirit  of  discussion,  to  talk  of  that  Jupiter  optimus 
maiimus,  from  whom  all  fountains  flowed  of  good  and 
evil  things,  before  whom  stood  the  two  golden  urns, 
one  filled  with  lettres  dc  cachet  —  the  other  with 
crosses,  pensions,  offices,  what  was  it  but  to  dance 
on  the  margin  of  a  volcano,  or  to  swim  cotillons  in 
the  suction  of  a  maelstrom  ?  Hence  it  was  that 
literature  became  the  only  safe  colloquial  subject  of 
a  general  nature  in  old  France  ;  hence  it  was  that 
literature  furnished  the  only  '  open  questions ; '  and 
hence  it  is  that  the  mode  and  the  expression  of  honor 
to  literature  in  France  has  continued  to  this  hour 
tainted  with  false  and  histrionic  feeling,  because  orig 
inally  it  grew  up  from  spurious  roots,  prospered  un 
naturally  upon  deep  abuses  in  the  system,  and  at  this 
day  (so  far  as  it  still  lingers)  memorializes  the  politi- 


134  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

cal  bondage  of  the  nation.  Cleanse  therefore  —  is 
our  prayer  —  cleanse,  oh,  unknown  Hercules,  this 
Augean  stable  of  our  English  current  literature,  rich  in 
dunghills,  rich  therefore  in  precipitate  mushroom  and 
fraudulent  fungus,  yet  rich  also  (if  we  may  utter  our 
real  thoughts)  —  rich  pre-eminently  at  this  hour  in 
seed-plots  of  immortal  growths,  and  in  secret  vegeta 
tions  of  volcanic  strength;  —  cleanse  it  (oh  coming 
man !)  but  not  by  turning  through  it  any  river  of 
Lethe,  such  as  for  two  centuries  swept  over  the  litera 
ture  of  France.  Purifying  waters  were  these  in  one 
sense  ;  they  banished  the  accumulated  depositions  of 
barbarism  ;  they  banished  Gothic  tastes ;  yes,  but  they 
did  tfiis  by  laying  asleep  the  nobler  activities  of  a 
great  people,  and  reconciling  them  to  forgetfulness  of 
all  which  commanded  them  as  duties,  or  whispered  to 
them  as  rights. 

If,  therefore,  the  false  homage  of  France  towards 
literature  still  survives,  it  is  no  object  for  imitation 
amongst  us  ;  since  it  arose  upon  a  vicious  element 
in  the  social  composition  of  that  people.  Partially  it 
does  survive,  as  we  all  know  by  the  experience  of  the 
last  twenty  years,  during  which  authors,  and  as  authors 
(not  like  Mirabeau  or  Talleyrand  in  spite  of  author 
ship),  have,  been  transferred  from  libraries  to  senates 
and  privv  councils.  This  has  done  no  service  to 
literature,  but,  on  the  contrary,  has  degraded  it  by 
seducing  the  children  of  literature  from  their  proper 
ambition.  It  is  the  glory  of  literature  to  rise  as  if  on 
wings  into  an  atmosphere  nobler  than  that  of  political 
intrigue.  And  the  whole  result  to  French  literature 
has  been,  —  that  some  ten  or  twelve  of  the  leading 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  135 

literati  have  been  tempted  away  by  bribes  from  their 
appropriate  duties,  while  some  five  thousand  have  been 
rnadc  envious  and  discontented. 

At  this  point,  when  warned  suddenly  that  the  hour 
glass  is  running  out,  which  measures  our  residuum  of 
flying  minutes,  we  first  perceive  on  looking  round,  that 
we  have  actually  been  skirmishing  with  Mr.  Forster, 
from  the  beginning  of  our  paper  to  this  very  line  ; 
and  thus  we  have  left  ourselves  but  a  corner  for  the 
main  purpose  (to  which  our  other  purpose  of  '  arglc- 
bargling'  was  altogether  subordinate)  of  expressing 
emphatically  our  thanks  to  him  for  this  successful 
labor  of  love  in  restoring  a  half-subverted  statue  to  its 
upright  position.  We  are  satisfied  that  many  thousands 
of  readers  will  utter  the  same  thanks  to  him,  with 
equal  fervor  and  with  the  same  sincerity.  Admiration 
for  the  versatile  ability  with  which  he  has  pursued  his 
object  is  swallowed  up  for  the  moment  in  gratitude  for 
his  perfect  success.  It  might  have  been  imagined, 
that  exquisite  truth  of  household  pathos,  and  of  humor, 
with  happy  graces  of  style  plastic  as  the  air  or  the 
surface  of  a  lake  to  the  pure  impulses  of  nature, 
sweeping  them  by  the  motions  of  her  eternal  breath, 
were  qualities  authorized  to  justify  themselves  before 
the  hearts  of  men,  in  defiance  of  all  that  sickly  scorn 
or  the  condescension  of  masquerading  envy  could 
avail  for  their  disturbance.  And  so  they  are:  and 
left  to  plead  for  themselves  at  such  a  bar  as  unbiassed 
human  hearts,  they  could  not  have  their  natural  influ 
ences  intercepted.  But  in  the  case  of  Goldsmith, 
literary  traditions  have  not  left  these  qualities  to  their 
natural  influences.  It  is  a  fact  that  up  to  this  hour  the 


136  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

contemporary  falsehoods  at  Goldsmith's  expense,  and 
(worse  perhaps  than  those  falsehoods)  the  malicious 
constructions  of  incidents  partly  true,  having  wings 
lent  to  them  by  the  levity  and  amusing  gossip  of  Bos- 
well,  continue  to  obstruct  the  full  ratification  of  Gold 
smith's  pretensions.  To  this  hour  the  scorn  from  many 
of  his  own  age,  runs  side  by  side  with  the  misgiving 
sense  of  his  real  native  power.  A  feeling  still  sur 
vives,  originally  derived  from  his  own  age,  that  the 
4  inspired  idiot,'  wherever  he  succeeded,  ought  not  to 
have  succeeded,  —  having  owed  his  success  to  acci 
dent,  or  even  to  some  inexplicable  perverseness  in 
running  counter  to  his  own  nature.  It  was  by  shooting 
awry  that  he  had  hit  the  mark  ;  and,  when  most  he 
came  near  to  the  bull's  eye,  most  of  all  'by  rights' 
he  ought  to  have  missed  it.  He  had  blundered  into 
the  Traveller,  into  Mr.  Croaker,  into  Tony  Lumkin  ; 
and  not  satisfied  with  such  dreadful  blunders  as  these, 
he  had  consummated  his  guilt  by  blundering  into  the 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  and  the  Deserted  Village  ;  atro- 
c'ties  over  which,  in  effect,  we  are  requested  to  drop 
the  veil  of  human  charity  ;  since  the  more  gem-like 
we  may  choose  to  think  these  works,  the  more  unnatu 
ral,  audacious,  and  indeed  treasonable,  it  was  in  an 
idiot  to  produce  them. 

In  this  condition  of  Goldsmith's  traditionary  charac 
ter,  so  injuriously  disturbing  to  the  natural  effect  of  his 
inimitable  works,  (for  in  its  own  class  each  of  his  best 
works  is  inimitable,)  Mr.  Forster  steps  forward  with  a 
three-fold  exposure  of  the  falsehood  inherent  in  the 
anecdotes  upon  which  this  traditional  character  has 
arisen.  Some  of  these  anecdotes  he  challenges  as 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  137 

literally  false  ;  others  as  virtually  so  ;  they  are  true, 
perhaps,  but  under  such  a  version  of  their  circum 
stances  as  would  altogether  take  out  the  sting  of  their 
offensive  interpretation.  For  others  again,  and  this  is 
a  profoimder  service,  he  furnishes  a  most  just  and 
philosophic  explanation,  that  brings  them  at  once 
within  the  reader's  toleration,  nay,  sometimes  within 
a  deep  reaction  of  pity.  As  a  case,  for  instance,  of 
downright  falsehood,  we  may  cite  the  well  known  story 
told  by  Boswell,  —  that,  when  Goldsmith  travelled  in 
France  with  some  beautiful  young  English  women 
(meaning  the  Miss  Hornccks),  he  was  seriously  uneasy 
at  the  attentions  which  they  received  from  the  gallantry 
of  Frenchmen,  as  intruding  upon  his  own  claims. 
Now  this  story,  in  logical  phrase,  proves  too  much. 
For  the  man  who  could  have  expressed  such  feelings 
in  such  a  situation,  must  have  been  ripe  for  Bedlam. 
Coleridge  mentions  a  man  who  entertained  so  exalted 
an  opinion  of  himself,  and  of  his  own  right  to  apothe 
osis,  that  he  never  uttered  that  great  pronoun  '  /,' 
without  solemnly  taking  off  his  hat.  Even  to  the 
oblique  case  4  mej  which  no  compositor  ever  honors 
with  a  capital  M,  and  to  the  possessive  pronoun  my 
and  mine,  he  held  it  a  duty  to  kiss  his  hand.  Yet  this 
bedlamite  would  not  have  been  a  competitor  with  a 
lady  for  the  attentions  paid  to  her  in  right  of  her  sex. 
In  Goldsmith's  case,  the  whole  allegation  was  dissi 
pated  in  the  most  decisive  way.  Some  years  after 
Goldsmith's  death,  one  of  the  sisters  personally  con 
cerned  in  the  case,  was  unaffectedly  shocked  at  the 
printed  story  when  coming  to  her  knowledge,  as  a 
gross  calumny ;  her  sorrow  made  it  evident  that  the 


138  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

whole  had  been  a  malicious  distortion  of  some  light- 
hearted  gaiety  uttered  by  Goldsmith.  There  is  little 
doubt  that  the  story  of  the  bloom-colored  coat,  and  of 
the  puppet-show,  rose  on  a  similar  basis —  the  calum 
nious  perversion  of  a  jest. 

But.  in  other  cases,  where  there  really  may  have 
been  some  fretful  expression  of  self-esteem,  Mr.  Fors- 
ter's  explanation  transfers  the  foible  to  a  truer  and 
a  more  pathetic  station.  Goldsmith's  own  precipi 
tancy,  his  overmastering  defect  in  proper  reserve,  in 
self-control,  and  in  presence  of  mind,  falling  in  with 
the  habitual  undervaluation  of  many  amongst  his 
associates,  placed  him  at  a  great  disadvantage  in 
animated  conversation.  His  very  truthfulness,  his 
simplicity,  his  frankness,  his  hurry  of  feeling,  all  told 
against  him.  They  betrayed  him  into  inconsiderate 
expressions  that  lent  a  color  of  plausibility  to  the 
malicious  ridicule  of  those  who  disliked  him  the  more, 
from  being  compelled,  after  all,  to  respect  him.  His 
own  understanding  oftentimes  sided  with  his  disparag 
ers.  He  saw  that  he  had  been  in  the  wrong ;  whilst 
secretly  he  felt  that  his  meaning  —  if  properly  ex 
plained —  had  been  right.  Defrauded  in  this  way,  and 
by  his  own  co-operation,  of  distinctions  that  naturally 
belonged  to  him,  he  was  driven  unconsciously  to 
attempt  some  restoration  of  the  balance,  by  claiming 
for  a  moment  distinctions  to  which  he  had  no  real 
pretensions.  The  whole  was  a  trick  of  sorrow,  and 
of  sorrowing  perplexity  :  he  felt  that  no  justice  had 
been  done  to  him,  and  that  he  himself  had  made  an 
opening  for  the  wrong :  the  result  he  saw,  but  the 
process  ho  could  not  disentangle;  and,  in  the  con- 


OLIVER    GOLDSMITH.  139 

fusion  of  his  distress,  natural  irritation  threw  him 
upon  blind  efforts  to  recover  his  ground  by  unfounded 
claims,  when  claims  so  well  founded  had  been  mali 
ciously  disallowed. 

But  a  day  of  accounting  comes  at  last,  —  a  day  of 
rehearing  for  the  cause,  and  of  revision  for  the  judg 
ment.  The  longer  this  review  has  been  delayed,  the 
more  impressive  it  becomes  in  the  changes  which  it 
works.  Welcome  is  the  spectacle  when,  after  three- 
fourths  of  a  century  have  passed  away,  a  writer  — 
qualified  for  such  a  task,  by  ample  knowledge  of 
things  and  persons,  by  great  powers  for  a  comprehen 
sive  estimate  of  the  case,  and  for  a  splendid  exposition 
of  its  results,  with  deep  sensibility  to  the  merits  of  the 
man  chiefly  concerned  in  the  issue,  enthusiastic,  but 
without  partisanship — comes  forward  to  unsettle  false 
verdicts,  to  recombine  misarrangcd  circumstances,  and 
to  explain  anew  misinterpreted  facts.  Such  a  man 
wields  the  authority  of  heraldic  marshals.  Like  the 
Otho  of  the  Roman  theatre,  he  has  power  to  raise  or 
to  degrade  —  to  give  or  to  take  away  precedency. 
But,  like  this  Otho,  he  has  so  much  power,  because  he 
ex-ercises  it  on  known  principles,  and  without  caprice. 
To  the  man  of  true  genius,  like  Goldsmith,  when 
seating  himself  in  humility  on  the  lowest  bench,  he 
says,  — 4  Go  thou  up  to  a  higher  place.  Seat  thyself 
above  those  proud  men,  that  once  trampled  thee  in  the 
dust.  Be  thy  memorial  upon  earth, —  not  (as  of  some 
who  scorned  thee)  "  the  whistling  of  a  name."  Be 
thou  remembered  amongst  men  by  tears  of  tenderness, 
by  happy  laughter  untainted  with  malice,  and  by  the 
benedictions  of  those  that,  reverencing  man's  nature, 
see  gladly  its  frailties  brought  within  the  gracious 


140  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

smile  of  human  charity,  and  its  nobilities  levelled  to 
the  apprehension  of  simplicity  and  innocence.' 

Over  every  grave,  even  though  tenanted  by  guilt 
and  shame,  the  human  heart,  when  circumstantially 
made  acquainted  with  its  silent  records  of  suffering  or 
temptation,  yearns  in  love  or  in  forgiveness  to  breathe 
a  solemn  Requicscat  !  how  much  more,  then,  over  the 
grave  of  a  benefactor  to  the  human  race  !  But  it  is  a 
natural  feeling,  with  respect  to  such  a  prayer,  that, 
however  fervent  and  sincere,  it  has  no  perfect  faith  in 
its  own  validity,  so  long  as  any  unsettled  feud  from 
ancient  calumny  hangs  over  the  buried  person.  The 
undressed  wrong  seems  to  haunt  the  sepulchre  in  the 
shape  of  a  perpetual  disturbance  to  its  rest.  First  of 
all,  when  this  wrong  has  been  adjudicated  and  expi 
ated,  is  the  Requiescat  uttered  with  a  perfect  faith  in 
itself.  By  a  natural  confusion  we  then  transfer  our 
own  feelings  to  the  occupant  of  the  grave.  The  tran- 
quillization  to  our  own  wounded  sense  of  justice  seems 
like  an  atonement  to  his  :  the  peace  for  us  transforms 
itself  under  a  fiction  of  tenderness  into  a  peace  for 
him :  the  reconciliation  between  the  world  that  did  the 
wrong  arid  the  grave  that  seemed  to  suffer  it,  is 
accomplished  ;  the  reconciler,  in  such  a  case,  whoever 
he  may  be,  seems  a  double  benefactor  —  to  him  that 
endured  the  injury  —  to  us  that  resented  it ;  and  in  the 
particular  case  now  before  the  public,  we  shall  all  be 
ready  to  agree  that  this  reconciling  friend,  who  might 
have  entitled  his  work  Vindicia  Oliveriancc,  has,  by 
the  piety  of  his  service  to  a  man  of  exquisite  genius, 
so  long  and  so  foully  misrepresented,  earned  a  right  to 
interweave  for  ever  his  own  cipher  and  cognisance  in 
filial  union  with  those  of  OLIVER  GOLDSMITH 


NOTES. 


NOTE  1.     Page  101. 

WE  do  not  allude  chiefly  to  his  experience  in  childhood, 
when  he  is  reported  to  have  been  a  general  butt  of  mockery  for 
his  ugliness  and  his  supposed  stupidity  ;  since  as  regarded  the 
latter  reproach,  he  could  not  have  suffered  very  long,  having 
already  at  a  childish  age  vindicated  his  intellectual  place  by 
the  verses  which  opened  to  him  an  academic  destination.  We 
allude  to  his  mature  life,  and  the  supercilious  condescension 
with  which  even  his  reputed  friends  doled  out  their  praises  to 
him. 

NOTE  2.     Page  102. 

We  point  this  remark,  not  at  Mr.  Forster,  who,  upon  the 
whole,  shares  our  opinion  as  to  the  tolerable  comfort  of  Gold 
smith's  life  ;  he  speaks  indeed  elsewhere  of  Goldsmith's  de 
pressions  j  but  the  question  still  remains  —  were  they  of  fre 
quent  recurrence,  and  had  they  any  constitutional  settlement? 
We  are  inclined  to  say  no  in  both  cases. 

NOTE  3.    Page  105. 

Which  tub  the  reader  may  fancy  to  have  been  only  an  old 
tar  barrel ;  if  so,  he  is  wrong.  Isaac  Casaubon,  after  severe 
researches  into  the  nature  of  that  tub,  ascertained  to  the  gen 
eral  satisfaction  of  Christendom  that  it  was  not  of  wood,  or 
within  the  restorative  powers  of  a  cooper,  but  of  earthenware, 
and  once  shattered  by  a  horse's  kick,  quite  past  repair.  In 


142  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

fact,  it  was  a  large  oil  jar,  such  as  the  remnant  of  the  forty 
thieves  lurked  in,  when  waiting  for  their  captain's  signal  from 
AH  Baba's  house  ;  and  in  Attica,  it  must  have  cost  fifteen  shil 
lings,  supposing  that  the  philosopher  did  not  steal  it.  Conse 
quently  a  week's  loss  of  house-room  and  credit  to  Oliver  Gold 
smith,  at  the  rate  of  living  then  prevalent  in  Grub  street,  was 
pretty  much  the  same  thing  in  money  value  as  the  loss  to 
Diogenes  of  his  crockery  house  by  burglary,  or  in  any  noctur 
nal  lark  of  young  Attic  wine-bibbers.  The  underwriters  would 
have  done  an  insurance  upon  either  man  at  pretty  much  the 
same  premium. 

NOTE  4.     Page  108. 

It  may  be  necessary  to  explain,  for  the  sake  of  the  many 
persons  who  have  come  amongst  the  reading  public  since  the 
period  of  the  incident  referred  to,  that  this  was  a  boy  called 
Jones,  who  was  continually  entering  Buckingham  Palace  clan 
destinely,  was  as  regularly  ejected  by  the  police,  but  with  re 
spectable  pertinacity  constantly  returned,  and  on  one  occasion 
effected  a  lodgment  in  the  royal  bedchamber.  Some  happy 
wit,  in  just  admiration  of  such  perseverance  and  impudence, 
christened  him  In-I-go  Junes. 

NOTE  5.     Page  110. 

Often,  but  not  so  uniformly  (the  reader  will  think)  as  the 
diction,  because  the  manners  are  sometimes  not  those  of  the 
writer's  own  age,  being  ingenious  adaptations  to  meet  the 
modern  writer's  conjectural  ideas  of  ancient  manners.  These, 
however,  (even  in  Sir  Walter  Scott,)  are  precisely  the  most 
mouldering  parts  in  the  entire  architecture,  being  always  (as, 
for  instance,  in  Ivanhoe)  fantastic,  caricatured,  and  betraying 
the  true  modern  ground  gleaming  through  the  artificial  tarnish 
of  antiquity.  All  novels,  in  every  language,  are  hurrying  to 
decay;  and  hurrying  by  internal  changes,  were  those  all; 
but,  in  the  meantime,  the  everlasting  life  and  fertility  of  the 
human  mind  is  for  ever  accelerating  this  hurry  by  superseding 
them,  i.  e.  by  an  external  change.  Old  forms,  fading  from  the 


NOTES.  113 

interest,  or  even  from  the  apprehension,  have  no  chance  at  all 
as  against  new  forms  embodying  the  same  passions.  It  is  only 
in  the  grander  passions  of  poetry,  allying  themselves  with 
forms  more  abstract  and  permanent,  that  such  a  conflict  of  the 
old  with  the  new  is  possible. 

NOTE  6.    Page  116. 

It  ought,  by  this  time,  to  be  known  equally  amongst  govern 
ments  and  philosophers  —  that  for  the  State  to  promise  with 
sincerity  the  absorption  of  surplus  labor,  as  fast  as  it  accumu 
lates,  cannot  be  postulated  as  a  duty,  until  it  can  first  be 
demonstrated  as  a  possibility.  This  was  forgotten,  however, 
by  Mr.  C.,  whose  vehement  complaints,  that  the  arable  field, 
without  a  ploughman,  should  be  in  one  county,  whilst  in 
another  county  was  the  stout  ploughman  without  a  field  j  and 
sometimes  (which  was  worse  still)  that  the  surplus  plough 
men  should  far  outnumber  the  surplus  fields,  certainly  pro 
ceeded  on  the  secret  assumption  that  all  this  was  within  the 
remedial  powers  of  the  state.  'I  he  same  doctrine  was  more 
openly  avowed  by  various  sections  of  our  radicals,  who  (in 
their  occasionally  insolent  petitions  to  parliament)  many  times 
asserted  that  one  main  use  and  function  of  a  government  was, 
to  find  work  for  everybody.  At  length  (February  and  March, 
18-15)  we  see  this  doctrine  solemnly  adopted  by  a  French 
body  of  rulers,  self-appointed,  indeed,  or  perhaps  appointed  by 
their  wives,  and  so  far  sure,  in  a  few  weeks,  to  be  answerable 
for  nothing  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  adopting  it  as  a  practical 
undertaking,  in  the  lawyer's  sense,  and  by  no  means  as  a  mere 
gaiety  of  rhetoric.  Meantime,  they  themselves  will  be  '  broken  ' 
before  they  will  have  had  time  for  being  reproached  with 
broken  promises  ;  though  neither  fracture  is  likely  to  require 
much  above  the  length  of  a  quarantine 

NOTE  7.     Page  117. 

When  writing  this  passage,  we  were  not  aware  (as  we  now 
are)  that  Mr.  Faster  had  himself  noticed  the  case. 


144  OLIVER    GOLDSMITH. 

NOTE  8.    Page  119. 

His  name  began  with  A,  and  ended  with  N ;  there  are  but 
three  more  letters  in  the  name,  and  if  doubt  arises  upon  our 
story,  in  the  public  mind,  we  shall  publish  them. 

NOTE  9.    Page  122 

If  Addison  died  (as  we  think  he  did)  in  1717,  then  because 
Goldsmith  commenced  authorship  in  1757,  there  would  be 
forty  years  between  the  two  periods.  But,  as  it  would  be  fairer 
to  measure  from  the  centre  of  Addisori's  literary  career,  i.  e. 
from  1707,  the  difference  would  be  just  half  a  century. 


ALEXANDER   POPE.* 


EVERY  great  classic  in  our  native  language  should 
from  time  to  time  be  reviewed  anew ;  and  espe 
cially  if  he  belongs  in  any  considerable  extent  to 
that  section  of  the  literature  which  connects  itself 
with  manners;  and  if  his  reputation  originally,  or  his 
style  of  composition,  is  likely  to  have  been  much  influ 
enced  by  the  transient  fashions  of  his  own  age.  The 
withdrawal,  for  instance,  from  a  dramatic  poet,  or  a 
satirist,  of  any  false  lustre  which  he  has  owed  to  his 
momentary  connection  with  what  we  may  call  the 
personalities  of  a  fleeting  generation,  or  of  any  undue 
shelter  to  his  errors  which  may  have  gathered  round 
them  from  political  bias,  or  from  intellectual  infirm 
ities  amongst  his  partisans,  will  sometimes  seriously 
modify,  after  a  century  or  so,  the  fairest  original 
appreciation  of  a  fine  writer.  A  window,  composed 
of  Claude  Lorraine  glasses,  spreads  over  the  land 
scape  outside  a  disturbing  effect,  which  not  the  most 
practised  eye  can  evade.  The  eidola  theatri  affect  us 
all.  No  man  escapes  the  contagion  from  his  contem 
porary  bystanders.  And  the  reader  may  see  further 

*  The  Works  of  Pope,  by  Roscoe. 
10 


146  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

on,  that,  had  Pope  been  merely  a  satiric  poet,  he  must 
in  these  times  have  laid  down  much  of  the  splendor 
which  surrounds  him  in  our  traditional  estimate  of  his 
merit.  Such  a  renunciation  would  be  a  forfeit  —  not 
always  to  errors  in  himself — but  sometimes  to  errors 
in  that  stage  of  English  society,  which  forced  the 
ablest  writer  into  a  collusion  with  its  own  meretricious 
tastes.  The  antithetical  prose  '  characters,'  as  they 
were  technically  termed,  which  circulated  amongst  the 
aristocracy  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  the 
style  of  the  dialogue  in  such  comedy  as  was  then  pop 
ular,  and  much  of  the  occasional  poetry  in  that  age, 
expose  an  immoderate  craving  for  glittering  effects 
from  contrasts  too  harsh  to  be  natural,  too  sudden  to  be 
durable,  and  too  fantastic  to  be  harmonious.  To  meet 
this  vicious  taste,  from  which  (as  from  any  diffusive 
taste)  it  is  vain  to  look  for  perfect  immunity  in  any 
writer  lying  immediately  under  its  beams,  Pope  sacri 
ficed,  in  one  mode  of  composition,  the  simplicities  of 
nature  and  sincerity ;  and  had  he  practised  no  other 
mode,  we  repeat  that  now  he  must  have  descended 
from  his  pedestal.  To  some  extent  he  is  degraded 
even  as  it  is ;  for  the  reader  cannot  avoid  whispering 
to  himself  —  what  quality  of  thinking  must  that  be 
which  allies  itself  so  naturally  (as  will  be  shown)  with 
distortions  of  fact  or  of  philosophic  truth  ?  But,  had 
his  whole  writings  been  of  that  same  cast,  he  must 
have  been  degraded  altogether,  and  a  star  would  have 
fallen  from  our  English  galaxy  of  poets. 

We  mention  this  particular  case  as  a  reason  gen 
erally  for  renewing  by  intervals  the  examination  of 
great  writers,  and  liberating  the  verdict  of  their  con- 


ALEXANDER   POPE.  147 

temporaries  from  the  casual  disturbances  to  which 
every  age  is  liable  in  its  judgments,  and  in  its  tastes. 
As  books  multiply  to  an  unmanageable  excess,  selec 
tion  becomes  more  and  more  a  necessity  for  readers,  j 
and  the  power  of  selection  more  and  more  a  desperate 
problem  for  the  busy  part  of  readers.  The  possibility 
of  selecting  wisely  is  becoming  continually  more  hope 
less,  as  the  necessity  for  selection  is  becoming  continu 
ally  more  crying.  Exactly  as  the  growing  weight  of 
books  overlays  and  stifles  the  power  of  comparison,  pari 
passu  is  the  call  for  comparison  the  more  clamorous; 
and  thus  arises  a  duty  correspondingly  more  urgent,  of 
searching  and  revising  until  everything  spurious  has 
been  weeded  out  from  amongst  the  Flora  of  our  highest 
literature ;  and  until  the  waste  of  time  for  those  who 
have  so  little  at  their  command,  is  reduced  to  a  mini 
mum.  For,  where  the  good  cannot  be  read  in  its  twen 
tieth  part,  the  more  requisite  it  is  that  no  part  of  the 
bad  should  steal  an  hour  of  the  available  time  ;  and  it 
is  not  to  be  endured  that  people  without  a  minute  to 
spare,  should  be  obliged  first  of  all  to  read  a  book 
before  they  can  ascertain  whether  it  was  at  all  worth 
reading.  The  public  cannot  read  by  proxy  as  regards 
the  good  which  it  is  to  appropriate,  but  it  can  as  re 
gards  the  poison  which  is  to  escape.  And  thus,  as 
literature  expands,  becoming  continually  more  of  a 
household  necessity,  the  duty  resting  upon  critics  (who  .  , 
are  the  vicarious  readers  for  the  public)  becomes  con-  / 
tinually  more  urgent  —  of  reviewing  all  works  that 
may  be  supposed  to  have  benefited  too  much  or  too 
indiscriminately  by  the  superstition  of  a  name.  The 
prcEgustatores  should  have  tasted  of  every  cup,  and 


148  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

reported  its  quality,  before  the  public  call  for  it;  and, 
above  all,  they  should  have  done  this  in  all  cases  of  the 
higher  literature —  that  is,  of  literature  properly  so 
called. 

What  is  it  that  we  mean  by  literature  ?  Popularly, 
and  amongst  the  thoughtless,  it  is  held  to  include  every 
thing  that  is  printed  in  a  book.  Little  logic  is  required 
to  disturb  that  definition ;  tfie  most  thoughtless  person 
is  easily  made  aware  that  in  the  idea  of  literature  one 
essential  element  is,  —  some  relation  to  a  general  and 
common  interest  of  man,  so  that  what  applies  only 
to  a  local,  or  professional,  or  merely  personal  inte 
rest,  even  though  presenting  itself  in  the  shape  of  a 
book,  will  not  belong  to  literature.  So  far  the  defini 
tion  is  easily  narrowed ;  and  it  is  as  easily  expanded. 
For  not  only  is  much  that  takes  a  station  in  books  not 
literature ;  but  inversely,  much  that  really  is  litera 
ture  never  reaches  a  station  in  books.  The  weekly 
sermons  of  Christendom,  that  vast  pulpit  literature 
which  acts  so  extensively  upon  the  popular  mind  —  to 
warn,  to  uphold,  to  renew,  to  comfort,  to  alarm,  does 
not  attain  the  sanctuary  of  libraries  in  the  ten  thou 
sandth  part  of  its  extent.  The  drama  again,  as  for 
instance,  the  finest  of  Shakspeare's  plays  in  England, 
and  all  leading  Athenian  plays  in  the  noontide  of  the 
Attic  stage,  operated  as  a  literature  on  the  public  mind, 
and  were  (according  to  the  strictest  letter  of  that  term) 
published  through  the  audiences  that  witnessed  T  their 
representation  some  time  before  they  were  published 
as  things  to  be  read ;  and  they  were  published  in  this 
scenical  mode  of  publication  with  much  more  effect 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  149 

than  they  could   have  had  as  books,  during  ages  of 
costly  copying  or  of  costly  printing. 

Books,  therefore,  do  not  suggest  an  idea  co-extensive 
and  interchangeable  with  the  idea  of  literature  ;  since 
much  literature,  scenic,  forensic,  or  didactic,  (as  from 
lecturers  and  public  orators,)  may  never  come  into 
books  ;  and  much  that  docs  come  into  books,  may 
connect  itself  with  no  literary  interest.  But  a  far  more 
important  correction,  applicable  to  the  common  vague 
idea  of  literature,  is  to  be  sought — not  so  much  in  a 
better  definition  of  literature,  as  in  a  sharper  distinc 
tion  of  the  two  functions  which  it  fulfils.  In  that  great 
social  organ,  which  collectively  we  call  literature,  there 
may  be  distinguished  two  separate  offices  that  may 
blend  and  often  do  so,  but  capable  severally  of  a  severe 
insulation,  and  naturally  fitted  for  reciprocal  repulsion. 
There  is  first  the  literature  of  knowledge,  and  secondly, 
the  literature  of  power.  The  function  of  the  first  is  — 
to  teach ;  the  function  of  the  second  is  —  to  move :  the 
first  is  a  rudder,  the  second  an  oar  or  a  sail.  The 
first  speaks  to  the  mere  discursive  understanding;  the 
second  speaks  ultimately,  it  may  happen,  to  the  higher 
understanding  or  reason,  but  always  through  affections 
of  pleasure  and  sympathy.  Remotely,  it  may  travel 
towards  an  object  seated  in  what  Lord  Bacon  calls  dry 
light ;  but  proximately  it  does  and  must  operate,  else 
it  ceases  to  be  a  literature  of  power,  on  and  through 
that  humid  light  which  clothes  itself  in  the  mists  and 
glittering  iris  of  human  passions,  desires,  and  genial 
emotions.  Men  have  so  little  reflected  on  the  higher 
functions  of  literature,  as  to  find  it  a  paradox  if  one 
should  describe  it  as  a  mean  or  subordinate  purpose  of 


150  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

books  to  give  information.  But  this  is  a  paradox  only 
in  the  sense  which  makes  it  honorable  to  be  paradoxi 
cal.  Whenever  we  talk  in  ordinary  language  of 
seeking  information  or  gaining  knowledge,  we  under 
stand  the  words  as  connected  with  something  of  abso 
lute  novelty.  But  it  is  the  grandeur  of  all  truth  which 
can  occupy  a  very  high  place  in  human  interests,  that 
it  is  never  absolutely  novel  to  the  meanest  of  minds  : 
it  exists  eternally  by  way  of  germ  or  latent  principle 
in  the  lowest  as  in  the  highest,  needing  to  be  developed 
but  never  to  be  planted.  To  be  capable  of  trans- 
,  plantation  is  the  immediate  criterion  of  a  truth  that 
ranges  on  a  lower  scale.  Besides  which,  there  is  a 
rarer  thing  than  truth,  namely,  power  or  deep  sympa 
thy  with  truth.  What  is  the  effect,  for  instance,  upon 
society,  of  children  ?  By  the  pity,  by  the  tender 
ness,  and  by  the  peculiar  modes  of  admiration,  which 
connect  themselves  with  the  helplessness,  with  the 
innocence,  and  with  the  simplicity  of  children,  not 
only  are  the  primal  affections  strengthened  and  con 
tinually  renewed,  but  the  qualities  which  are  dearest 
in  the  sight  of  heaven  —  the  frailty,  for  instance,  which 
appeals  to  forbearance,  the  innocence  which  symbol 
izes  the  heavenly,  and  the  simplicity  which  is  most 
alien  from  the  worldly,  are  kept  up  in  perpetual  re 
membrance,  and  their  ideals  are  continually  refreshed. 
/A  purpose  of  the  same  nature  is  answered  by  the 
/  higher  literature,  viz.,  the  literature  of  power.  What 
jtlo  you  learn  from  Paradise  Lost?  Nothing  at  all. 
/  What  do  you  learn  from  a  cookery-book  ?  Something 
\iew,  something  that  you  did  not  know  before,  in  every 
paragraph.  But  would  you  therefore  put  the  wretched 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  151 

cookery-book  on  a  higher  level  of  estimation  than  the 
divine  poem  ?  What  you  owe  to  Milton  is  not  any 
knowledge,  of  which  a  million  separate  items  are  still 
but  a  million  of  advancing  steps  on  the  same  earthly 
level  ;  what  you  owe,  is  power,  that  is,  exercise  and 
expansion  to  your  own  latent  capacity  of  sympathy 
with  the  infinite,  where  every  pulse  and  each  separate 
influx  is  a  step  upwards  —  a  step  ascending  as  upon  a 
Jacob's  ladder  from  earth  to  mysterious  altitudes  above 
the  earth.  All  the  steps  of  knowledge,  from  first  to 
last,  carry  you  further  on  the  same  plane,  but  could 
never  raise  you  one  foot  above  your  ancient  level  of 
earth  :  whereas,  the  very  first  step  in  power  is  a  flight 
—  is  an  ascending  into  another  element  where  earth 
is  forgotten. 

Were  it  not  that  human  sensibilities  are  ventilated 
and  continually  called  out  into  exercise  by  the  great 
phenomena  of  infancy,  or  of  real  life  as  it  moves 
through  chance  and  change,  or  of  literature  as  it  re- 
combines  these  elements  in  the  mimicries  of  poetry, 
romance,  &,e.,  it  is  certain  that,  like  any  animal  power 
or  muscular  energy  falling  into  disuse,  all  such  sensi 
bilities  would  gradually  droop  and  dwindle.  It  is  in 
relation  to  these  great  moral  capacities  of  man  that  the 
literature  of  power,  as  contradistinguished  from  that 
of  knowledge,  lives  and  has  its  field  of  action.  It  is 
concerned  with  what  is  highest  in  man  :  for  the  Scrip 
tures  themselves  never  condescended  to  deal  by  sug 
gestion  or  co-operation,  with  the  mere  discursive 
understanding  :  when  speakirrg  of  man  in  his  intellec 
tual  capacity,  the  Scriptures  speak  not  of  the  under 
standing,  but  of  i  Ike  understanding  heart? —  making 


152  ALEXANDER   POPE. 

the  heart,  i.  e.  the  great  intuitive  (or  non-discursive) 
organ,  to  be  the  interchangeable  formula  for  man  in 
his  highest  state  of  capacity  for  the  infinite.  Tragedy, 
romance,  fairy  tale,  or  epopee,  all  alike  restore  to 
man's  mind  the  ideals  of  justice,  of  hope,  of  truth,  of 
mercy,  of  retribution,  which  else  (left  to  the  support 
of  daily  life  in  its  realities)  would  languish  for  want  of 
sufficient  illustration.  What  is  meant,  for  instance,  by 
poetic  justice  ?  —  It  does  not  mean  a  justice  that  differs 
by  its  object  from  the  ordinary  justice  of  human  juris 
prudence  ;  for  then  it  must  be  confessedly  a  very  bad 
kind  of  justice  ;  but  it  means  a  justice  that  differs  from 
common  forensic  justice  by  the  degree  in  which  it 
attains  its  object,  a  justice  that  is  more  omnipotent 
over  its  own  ends,  as  dealing  —  not  with  the  refractory 
elements  of  earthly  life  —  but  with  elements  of  its 
own  creation,  and  with  materials  flexible  to  its  own 
purest  preconceptions.  It  is  certain  that,  were  it  not 
for  the  literature  of  power,  these  ideals  would  often 
remain  amongst  us  as  mere  arid  national  forms ; 
whereas,  by  the  creative  forces  of  man  put  forth  in 
literature,  they  gain  a  vernal  life  of  restoration,  and 
germinate  into  vital  activities.  The  commonest  novel 
by  moving  in  alliance  with  human  fears  and  hopes, 
with  human  instincts  of  wrong  and  right,  sustains  and 
quickens  those  affections.  Calling  them  into  action, 
it  rescues  them  from  torpor.  And  hence  the  pre- 
eminency  over  all  authors  that  merely  teach,  of  the 
meanest  that  moves;  or  that  teaches,  if  at  all,  indi 
rectly  by  moving.  The  very  highest  work  that  has 
ever  existed  in  the  literature  of  knowledge,  is  but  a 
provisional  work:  a  book  upon  trial  and  sufferance, 


ALEXANDER   POPE.  153 

and  quamdiu  lene  se  gesserit.  Let  its  teaching  be 
even  partially  revised,  let  it  be  but  expanded,  nay, 
even  let  its  teaching  be  but  placed  in  a  better  order, 
and  instantly  it  is  superseded.  Whereas  the  feeblest — 
works  in  the  literature  of  power,  surviving  at  all,  sur 
vive  as  finished  and  unalterable  amongst  men.  For 
instance,  the  Principia  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  a 
book  militant  on  earth  from  the  first.  In  all  stages  of 
its  progress  it  would  have  to  fight  for  its  existence  : 
1st,  as  regards  absolute  truth  ;  2dly,  when  that  combat 
is  over,  as  regards  its  form  or  mode  of  presenting  the 
truth.  And  as  soon  as  a  La  Place,  or  anybody  else, 
builds  higher  upon  the  foundations  laid  by  this  book, 
effectually  he  throws  it  out  of  the  sunshine  into  decay 
and  darkness ;  by  weapons  won  from  this  book  he 
superannuates  and  destroys  this  book,  so  that  soon  the 
name  of  Newton  remains,  as  a  mere  nominis  umbra^ 
but  his  book,  as  a  living  power,  has  transmigrated  into 
other  forms.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  the  Iliad,  the 
Prometheus  of  JEschylus, —  the  Othello  or  King  Lear, 
—  the  Hamlet  or  Macbeth,  —  and  the  Paradise  Lost, 
are  not  militant  but  triumphant  for  ever  as  long  as  the 
languages  exist  in  which  they  speak  or  can  be  taught 
to  speak.  They  never  can  transmigrate  into  new 
incarnations.  To  reproduce  these  in  new  forms,  or 
variations,  even  if  in  some  things  they  should  be  im 
proved,  would  be  to  plagiarize.  A  good  steam-engine 
is  properly  superseded  by  a  better.  But  one  lovely 
pastoral  valley  is  not  superseded  by  another,  nor  a 
statue  of  Praxiteles  by  a  statue  of  Michael  Angelo. 
These  things  are  not  separated  by  imparity,  but  by 
disparity.  They  are  not  thought  of  as  unequal  under 


154  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

the  same  standard,  but  as  different  in  kind,  an,d  as 
equal  under  a  different  standard.  Human  works  of 
immortal  beauty  and  works  of  nature  in  one  respect 
stand  on  the  same  footing :  they  never  absolutely 
repeat  each  other ;  never  approach  so  near  as  not  to 
differ;  and  they  differ  not  as  better  and  worse,  or 
simply  by  more  and  less :  they  differ  by  undecipher 
able  and  incommunicable  differences,  that  cannot  be 
caught  by  mimicries,  nor  be  reflected  in  the  mirror  of 
copies,  nor  become  ponderable  in  the  scales  of  vulgar 
comparison. 

Applying  these  principles  to  Pope,  as  a  representa 
tive  of  fine  literature  in  general,  we  would  wish  to 
remark  the  claim  which  he  has,  or  which  any  equal 
writer  has,  to  the  attention  and  jealous  winnowing  of 
those  critics  in  particular  who  watch  over  public 
morals.  Clergymen,  and  all  the  organs  of  public 
criticism  put  in  motion  by  clergymen,  are  more  espe 
cially  concerned  in  the  just  appreciation  of  such 
writers,  if  the  two  canons  are  remembered,  which  we 
have  endeavored  to  illustrate,  viz.,  that  all  works  in 
this  class,  as  opposed  to  those  in  the  literature  of 
knowledge,  1st,  work  by  far  deeper  agencies ;  and, 
2dly,  are  more  permanent  ;  in  the  strictest  sense  they 
are  x-i \UUTU  *$  an  :  and  what  evil  they  do,  or  what  good 
they  do,  is  commensurate  with  the  national  language, 
sometimes  long  after  the  nation  has  departed.  At  this 
hour,  five  hundred  years  since  their  creation,  the  tales 
of  Chaucer,2  never  equalled  on  this  earth  for  their 
tenderness,  and  for  life  of  picturesqueness,  are  read 
familiarly  by  many  in  the  charming  language  of  their 
natal  day,  and  by  others  in  the  modernizations  of 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  155 

Dryden,  of  Pope,  and  Wordsworth.  At  this  hour, 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  years  since  their  creation, 
the  Pagan  tales  of  Ovid,  never  equalled  on  this  earth 
for  the  gaiety  of  their  movement  and  the  capricious 
graces  of  their  narrative,  are  read  by  all  Christendom. 
This  man's  people  and  their  monuments  are  dust :  but 
he  is  alive  :  he  has  survived  them,  as  he  told  us  that 
he  had  it  in  his  commission  to  do,  by  a  thousand  years  ; 
*  and  shall  a  thousand  more.' 

All  the  literature  of  knowledge  builds  only  ground- 
nests,  that  are  swept  away  by  floods,  or  confounded 
by  the  plough  ;  but  the  literature  of  power  builds  nests 
in  aerial  altitudes  of  temples  sacred  from  violation,  or 
of  forests  inaccessible  to  fraud.  This  is  a  great  pre 
rogative  of  the  power  literature  ;  and  it  is  a  greater 
which  lies  in  the  mode  of  its  influence.  The  knowl 
edge  literature,  like  the  fashion  of  this  world,  passeth 
away.  An  Encyclopaedia  is  its  abstract ;  and,  in  this 
respect,  it  may  be  taken  for  its  speaking  symbol  — 
that,  before  one  generation  has  passed,  an  Encyclo 
paedia  is  superannuated ;  for  it  speaks  through  the— ~ 
dead  memory  and  unimpassioncd  understanding,  which 
have  not  the  rest  of  higher  faculties,  but  are  continu 
ally  enlarging  and  varying  their  phylacteries.  But  all 
literature,  properly  so  called  —  literature  XUT"  ^o/>,r, 
for  the  very  same  reason  that  it  is  so  much  more 
durable  than  the  literature  of  knowledge,  is  (and  by 
the  very  same  proportion  it  is)  more  intense  and  elec 
trically  searching  in  its  impressions.  The  directions 
in  which  the  tragedy  of  this  planet  has  trained  our 
human  feelings  to  play,  and  the  combinations  into 
which  the  poetry  of  this  planet  has  thrown  our  human 


156  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

passions  of  love  and  hatred,  of  admiration  and  con 
tempt,  exercise  a  power  bad  or  good  over  human  life, 
that  cannot  be  contemplated,  when  stretching  through 
many  generations,  without  a  sentiment  allied  to  awe.3 
And  of  this  let  every  one  be  assured  —  that  he  owes 
to  the  impassioned  books  which  he  has  read,  many  a 
thousand  more  of  emotions  than  he  can  consciously 
trace  back  to  them.  Dim  by  their  origination,  these 
emotions  yet  arise  in  him,  and  mould  him  through  life 
like  the  forgotten  incidents  of  childhood. 

In  making  a  revaluation  of  Pope  as  regards  some 
of  his  principal  works,  we  should  have  been  glad  to 
examine  more  closely  than  we  shall  be  able  to  do, 
some  popular  errors  affecting  his  whole  intellectual 
position ;  and  especially  these  two,  first,  That  he  be 
longed  to  what  is  idly  called  the  French  School  of  our 
literature ;  secondly,  That  he  was  specially  distin 
guished  from  preceding  poets  by  correctness.  The 
first  error  has  infected  the  whole  criticism  of  Europe. 
The  Schlcgels,  with  all  their  false  airs  of  subtlety,  fall 
into  this  error  in  discussing  every  literature  of  Chris 
tendom.  But,  if  by  a  mere  accident  of  life  any  poet 
had  first  turned  his  thoughts  into  a  particular  channel 
on  the  suggestion  of  some  French  book,  that  would 
not  justify  our  classing  what  belongs  to  universal  na 
ture,  and  what  inevitably  arises  at  a  certain  stage  of 
social  progress,  under  the  category  of  a  French  crea 
tion.  Somebody  must  have  been  first  in  point  of  time 
upon  every  field  ;  but  this  casual  precedency  estab 
lishes  no  title  whatever  to  authority,  or  plea  of  original 
dominion  over  fields  that  lie  within  the  inevitable  line 
of  march  upon  which  nations  are  moving.  Had  it 


ALEXANDER 

happened  that  the  first  European 
geometry  was  a  Grncco-Sicilian,  that  would  not  have 
made  it  rational  to  call  geometry  the  Graco-Sicilian 
Science.  In  every  nation  first  comes  the  higher  form 
of  passion,  next  the  lower.  This  is  the  mere  order  of 
nature  in  governing  the  movements  of  human  intellect, 
as  connected  with  social  evolution  ;  this  is  therefore 
the  universal  order,  that  in  the  earliest  stages  of  litera 
ture,  men  deal  with  the  great  elementary  grandeurs  of 
passion,  of  conscience,  of  the  will  in  self-conflict; 
they  deal  with  the  capital  struggle  of  the  human 
race  in  raising  empires,  or  in  overthrowing  them  —  in 
vindicating  their  religion  (as  by  crusades),  or  with  the 
more  mysterious  struggles  amongst  spiritual  races 
allied  to  our  own,  that  have  been  dimly  revealed  to 
us.  We  have  an  Iliad,  a  Jerusalem  Delivered,  a  Para 
dise  Lost.  These  great  subjects  exhausted,  or  exhaust 
ed  in  their  more  inviting  manifestations,  inevitably 
by  the  mere  endless  motion  of  society,  there  succeeds 
a  lower  key  of  passion.  Expanding  social  "intercourse 
in  towns,  multiplied  and^  crowded  more  and  more, 
banishes  those  gloomier  "arid  grander  phases  of  human 
history  from  literature.  The  understanding  is  quick 
ened  ;  the  lower  faculties  of  the  mind  —  fancy,  and 
the  habit  of  minute  distinction,  are  applied  to  the  con 
templation  of  society  and  manners.  Passion  begins 
to  wheel  in  lower  flights,  and  to  combine  itself  with 
interests  that  in  part  are  addressed  to  the  insulated 
understanding  —  observing,  refining,  reflecting.  This 
may  be  called  the  minor  key  of  literature  in  opposi 
tion  to  the  major,  as  cultivated  by  Shakspearc,  Spen 
ser,  Milton.  But  this  key  arises  spontaneously  in  every 


158  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

people,  and  by  a  necessity  as  sure  as  any  that  moulds 
the  progress  of  civilization.  Milton  and  Spenser  were 
not  of  any  Italian  school.  Their  Italian  studies  were 
the  result  and  not  the  cause  of  the  determination  given 
to  their  minds  by  nature  working  in  conjunction  with 
their  social  period.  It  is  equally  childish  to  say  of 
Dryden  and  Pope,  that  they  belonged  to  any  French 
school.  That  thing  which  they  did,  they  would  have 
done  though  France  had  been  at  the  back  of  China. 
The  school  to  which  they  belonged,  was  a  school  de 
veloped  at  a  certain  stage  of  progress  in  all  nations 
alike  by  the  human  heart  as  modified  by  the  human 
understanding  :  it  is  a  school  depending  on  the  peculiar 
direction  given  to  the  sensibilities  by  the  reflecting 
faculty,  and  by  the  new  phases  of  society.  Even  as 
a  fact,  (though  a  change  as  to  the  fact  could  not  make 
any  change  at  all  in  the  philosophy  of  the  case,)  it  is 
not  true  that  either  Dryden  or  Pope  was  influenced  by 
French  literature.  Both  of  them  had  a  very  imperfect 
acquaintance  with  the  French  language.  Dryden  ridi 
culed  French  literature;  and  Pope,  except  for  some 
purposes  connected  with  his  Homeric  translations,  read 
as  little  of  it  as  convenience  would  allow.  But,  had 
this  been  otherwise,  the  philosophy  of  the  case  stands 
good ;  that,  after  the  primary  formations  of  the  fer 
menting  intellect,  come  everywhere  —  in  Thebes  or 
Athens,  France  or  England,  the  secondary  ;  that,  after 
the  creating  passion  comes  the  reflecting  and  rccom- 
bining  passion ;  that  after  the  solemnities  and  cloistral 
grandeurs  of  life  —  solitary  and  self-conflicting,  comes 
the  recoil  of  a  self-observing  and  self-dissecting  stage, 
derived  from  life  social  and  gregarious.  After  the 


ALEXANDER   POPE.  159 

Iliad,  but  doubtless  many  generations  after,  comes  a 
Batrachomyomachia :  after  the  gorgeous  masque  of 
our  forefathers  came  always  the  anti-masque,  that 
threw  off  echoes  as  from  some  devil's  laughter  in 
mockery  of  the  hollow  and  transitory  pomps  that  went 
before. 

It  is  an  error  equally  gross,  and  an  error  in  which 
Pope  himself  participated,  that  his  plume  of  distinction 
from  preceding  poets  consisted  in  correctness.  Cor 
rectness  in  what  ?  Think  of  the  admirable  qualifica 
tions  for  settling  the  scale  of  such  critical  distinctions 
which  that  man  must  have  had  who  turned  out  upon 
this  vast  world  the  single  oracular  word  'correctness' 
to  shift  for  itself,  and  explain  its  own  meaning  to  all 
generations.  Did  he  mean  logical  correctness  in  ma 
turing  and  connecting  thoughts  ?  But  of  all  poets  that 
have  practised  reasoning  in  verse,  Pope  is  the  one  most 
inconsequential  in  the  deduction  of  his  thoughts,  and 
the  most  severely  distressed  in  any  effort  to  effect  or  to 
explain  the  dependency  of  their  parts.  There  are  not 
ten  consecutive  lines  in  Pope  unaffected  by  this  infir 
mity.  All  his  thinking  proceeded  by  insulated  and 
discontinuous  jets ;  and  the  only  resource  for  him,  or 
chance  of  even  seeming  correctness,  lay  in  the  liberty 
of  stringing  his  aphoristic  thoughts  like  pearls,  having 
no  relation  to  each  other  but  that  of  contiguity.  To 
set  them  like  diamonds  was  for  Pope  to  risk  distraction  ; 
to  systematize  was  ruin.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this 
elliptical  word  correctness  is  to  be  understood  with 
such  a  complimentary  qualification  as  would  restrict  it 
to  Pope's  use  of  language,  that  construction  is  even 
more  untenable  than  the  other — more  conspicuously 


160  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

untenable — for  many  are  they  who  have  erred  by  illo 
gical  thinking,  or  by  distracted  evolution  of  thoughts : 
but  rare  is  the  man  amongst  classical  writers  in  any 
language  who  has  disfigured  his  meaning  more  remark 
ably  than  Pope  by  imperfect  expression.  We  do  not 
speak  of  plebeian  phrases,  of  exotic  phrases,  of  slang, 
from  which  Pope  was  not  free,  though  more  free  than 
many  of  his  contemporaries.  From  vulgarism  indeed 
he  was  shielded,  though  imperfectly,  by  the  aristocratic 
society  he  kept :  they  being  right,  he  was  right :  and 
he  erred  only  in  the  cases  where  they  misled  him  ;  for 
even  the  refinement  of  that  age  was  oftentimes  coarse 
and  vulgar.  His  grammar,  indeed,  is  often  vicious: 
preterites  and  participles  he  constantly  confounds,  and 
registers  this  class  of  blunders  for  ever  by  the  cast-iron 
index  of  rhymes  that  never  can  mend.  But  worse 
than  this  mode  of  viciousness  is  his  syntax,  which  is 
so  bad  as  to  darken  his  meaning  at  times,  and  at  other 
times  to  defeat  it.  But  these  were  errors  cleaving  to 
his  times ;  and  it  would  be  unfair  to  exact  from  Pope 
a  better  quality  of  diction  than  belonged  to  his  con 
temporaries.  Still  it  is  indisputable  that  a  better  model 
of  diction  and  of  grammar  prevailed  a  century  before 
Pope.  In  Spenser,  in  Shakspeare,  in  the  Bible  of  King 
James's  reign,  and  in  Milton,  there  are  very  few  gram 
matical  errors.4  But  Pope's  defect  in  language  was 
almost  peculiar  to  himself.  It  lay  in  an  inability, 
nursed  doubtless  by  indolence,  to  carry  out  and  perfect 
the  expression  of  the  thought  he  wishes  to  commu 
nicate.  The  language  does  not  realize  the  idea :  it 
simply  suggests  or  hints  it.  Thus,  to  give  a  single 
illustration  :  — 


ALEXANDER   TOPE.  161 

'  Know,  God  and  Nature  only  are  the  same  : 
In  man  the  judgment  shoots  at  flying  game.' 

The  first  line  one  would  naturally  construe  into  this : 
that  God  and  Nature  were  in  harmony,  whilst  all  other 
objects  were  scattered  into  incoherency  by  difference 
and  disunion.  Not  at  all ;  it  means  nothing  of  the 
kind ;  but  that  God  and  Nature  only  are  exempted 
from  the  infirmities  of  change.  They  only  continue 
uniform  and  self-consistent.  This  might  mislead 
many  readers  ;  but  the  second  line  must  do  so  :  for 
who  would  not  understand  the  syntax  to  be,  that  the 
judgment,  as  it  exists  in  man,  shoots  at  flying  game  ? 
But,  in  fact,  the  meaning  is,  that  the  judgment,  in 
aiming  its  calculations  at  man,  aims  at  an  object  that 
is  still  on  the  wing,  and  never  fora  moment  stationary. 
We  give  this  as  a  specimen  of  a  fault  in  diction,  the 
very  worst  amongst  all  that  are  possible  ;  to  write  bad 
grammar  or  colloquial  slang  does  not  necessarily  ob 
scure  the  sense ;  but  a  fault  like  this  is  a  treachery, 
and  hides  the  true  meaning  under  the  cloud  of  a  co 
nundrum  :  nay  worse ;  for  even  a  conundrum  has 
fixed  conditions  for  determining  its  solution,  but  this 
sort  of  mutilated  expression  is  left  to  the  solutions  of 
conjecture. 

There  are  endless  varieties  of  this  fault  in  Pope,  by 
which  he  sought  relief  for  himself  from  half-an-hour's 
labor,  at  the  price  of  utter  darkness  to  his  reader. 

One  editor  distinguishes  amongst  the  epistles  that 
which  Pope  addressed  to  Lord  Oxford  some  years 
after  his  fall,  as  about  the  most  l  correct ,  musical, 
dignified,  and  affecting '  that  the  poet  has  left.  Now, 
even  as  a  specimen  of  vernacular  English,  it  is  con- 
11 


162  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

spicuously  bad :  the  shocking  gallicism,  for  instance, 
of  '  attend?  for  l  wait  his  leisure,'  in  the  line  4  For 
him,  i.  e.  on  his  behalf,  thou  oft  hast  bid  the  world 
attend,'  would  alone  degrade  the  verses.  To  bid  the 
world  attend  —  is  to  bid  the  world  listen  attentively  ; 
whereas  what  Pope  means  is,  that  Lord  Oxford  bade 
the  world  wait  in  his  ante-chamber,  until  he  had  leisure 
from  his  important  conferences  with  a  poet,  to  throw 
a  glance  upon  affairs  so  trivial  as  those  of  the  human 
race.  This  use  of  the  word  attend  is  a  shocking 
violation  of  the  English  idiom  ;  and  even  the  slightest 
would  be  an  unpardonable  blemish  in  a  poem  of 
only  forty  lines,  which  ought  to  be  polished  as  ex 
quisitely  as  a  cameo.  It  is  a  still  worse  disfiguration  of 
the  very  same  class,  viz.  a  silent  confession  of  defeat, 
in  a  regular  wrestling  match  with  the  difficulties  of  a 
metrical  expression,  that  the  poem  terminates  thus  — 

'  Nor  fears  to  tell  that  Mortimer  is  he  ; ' 

why  should  he  fear  ?  Really  there  is  no  very  despe 
rate  courage  required  for  telling  the  most  horrible  of 
secrets  about  Mortimer.  Had  Mortimer  even  been  so 
wicked  as  to  set  the  Thames  on  fire,  safely  it  might 
have  been  published  by  Mortimer's  bosom  friend  to  all 
magistrates,  sheriffs  and  constables  ;  for  not  a  man  of 
them  would  have  guessed  in  what  hiding-place  to  look 
for  Mortimer,  or  who  Mortimer  might  be.  True  it  is, 
that  a  secondary  earldom,  conferred  by  Queen  Anne 
upon  Robert  Harley,  was  that  of  Mortimer ;  but  it 
lurked  unknown  to  the  public  ear  ;  it  was  a  coronet 
that  lay  hid  under  the  beams  of  Oxford  —  a  title 
so  long  familiar  to  English  ears,  when  descending 


ALEXANDER   POPE.  163 

through  six-and-twenty  generations  of  de  Veres.  Quite 
as  reasonable  it  would  be  in  a  birth-day  ode  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  if  he  were  addressed  as  my  Lord 
of  Chester,  or  Baron  of  Kenfrew,  or  your  Grace 
of  Cornwall.  To  express  a  thing  in  cipher  may  do 
for  a  conspirator;  but  a  poet's  correctness  is  shown  in 
his  intelligibility. 

Amongst  the  early  poems  of  Pope,  the  4  ELOISA  TO 
ABELAKD'  has  a  special  interest  of  a  double  order: 
first,  it  has  a  personal  interest  as  the  poem  of  Pope, 
because  indicating  the  original  destination  of  Pope's 
intellect,  and  the  strength  of  his  native  vocation  to  a 
class  of  poetry  in  deeper  keys  of  passion  than  any 
which  he  systematically  cultivated.  For  itself  also, 
and  abstracting  from  its  connection  with  Pope's  natural 
destination,  this  poem  has  a  second  interest,  an  in 
trinsic  interest,  that  will  always  make  it  dear  to  impas 
sioned  minds.  The  self-conflict  —  the  flux  and  reflux 
of  the  poor  agitated  heart — the  spectacle  of  Eloisa 
now  bending  penitentially  before  the  shadowy  austeri 
ties  of  a  monastic  future,  now  raving  upon  the  remem 
brances  of  the  guilty  past  —  one  moment  reconciled 
by  the  very  anguish  of  her  soul  to  the  grandeurs  of 
religion  and  of  prostrate  adoration,  the  next  moment 
revolting  to  perilous  retrospects  of  her  treacherous 
happiness  —  the  recognition  by  shining  gleams  through 
the  very  storm  and  darkness  evoked  by  her  earthly 
sensibilities,  of  a  sensibility  deeper  far  in  its  ground, 
and  that  trembled  towards  holier  objects  —  the  lyrical 
tumult  of  the  changes,  the  hope,  the  tears,  the  rap 
ture,  the  penitence,  the  despair  —  place  the  reader  in 
tumultuous  sympathy  with  the  poor  distracted  nun. 


164  ALEXANDER   POPE. 

Exquisitely  imagined,  among  the  passages  towards  the 
end,  is  the  introduction  of  a  voice  speaking  to  Eloisa 
from  the  grave  of  some  sister  nun,  that,  in  long- 
forgotten  years,  once  had  struggled  and  suffered  like 
herself, 

«  Once  (like  herself)  that  trembled,  wept,  and  prayed, 
Love's  victim  then,  though  now  a  sainted  maid.' 

Exquisite  is  the  passage  in  which  she  prefigures  a  visit 
yet  to  come  from  Abelard  to  herself —  no  more  in  the 
character  of  a  lover,  but  as  a  priest,  ministering  by 
spiritual  consolations  to  her  dying  hours,  pointing  her 
thoughts  to  heaven,  presenting  the  Cross  to  her 
through  the  mists  of  death,  and  fighting  for  her  as  a 
spiritual  ally  against  the  torments  of  flesh.  That 
anticipation  was  not  gratified.  Abelard  died  long 
before  her;  and  the  hour  never  arrived  for  him  of 
which  with  such  tenderness  she  says, — 

'  It  will  be  then  no  crime  to  gaze  on  me.' 

But  another  anticipation  has  been  fulfilled  in  a  degree 
that  she  could  hardly  have  contemplated;  the  antici 
pation,  namely, — 

'  That  ages  hence,  when  all  her  woes  were  o'er, 
And  that  rebellious  heart  should  beat  no  more/ 

wandering  feet  should  be  attracted  from  afar 

1  To  Paraclete's  white  walls  and  silver  springs,' 

as  the  common  resting-place  and  everlasting  marriage- 
bed  of  Abelard  and  Eloisa ;  that  the  eyes  of  many 
that  had  been  touched  by  their  story,  by  the  memory 
of  their  extraordinary  accomplishments  in  an  age  of 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  165 

darkness,  and  by  the  calamitous  issue  of  their  attach 
ment,  should  seek,  first  and  last,  for  the  grave  in 
which  the  lovers  trusted  to  meet  again  in  peace  ;  and 
should  seek  it  with  interest  so  absorbing,  that  even 
amidst  the  ascent  of  hosannahs  from  the  choir,  amidst 
the  grandeurs  of  high  mass,  the  raising  of  the  host, 
and  4  the  pomp  of  dreadful  sacrifice,'  sometimes  these 
wandering  eyes  should  steal  aside  to  the  solemn 
abiding-place  of  Abelard  and  his  Eloisa,  offering  so 
pathetic  a  contrast,  by  its  peaceful  silence,  to  the  agita 
tions  of  their  lives;  and  that  there,  amidst  thoughts 
which  by  right  were  all  due  and  dedicated 

' to  heaven, 
One  human  tear  should  drop  and  be  forgiven.' 

We  may  properly  close  this  subject  of  Abelard 
and  Eloisa,  by  citing,  in  English,  the  solemn  Latin 
inscription  placed  in  the  last  century,  six  hundred 
years  after  their  departure  from  earth,  over  their  com 
mon  remains.  They  were  buried  in  the  same  grave, 
Abelard  dying  first  by  a  few  weeks  more  than  twenty- 
one  years;  his  tomb  was  opened  again  to  fidmit  the 
coffin  of  Eloisa  ;  and  the  tradition  at  Quincey,  the 
parish  near  Nogent-sur-Scinc,  in  which  the  monastery 
of  the  Paraclete  is  situated,  was,  that  at  the  moment 
of  interment  Abelard  opened  his  arms  to  receive  the 
impassioned  creature  that  once  had  loved  him  so  fran 
tically,  and  whom  he  had  loved  with  a  remorse  so 
memorable.  The  epitaph  is  singularly  solemn  in  its 
brief  simplicity,  considering  that  it  came  from  Paris, 
and  from  academic  wits :  '  Here,  under  the  same 
marble  slab,  lie  the  founder  of  this  monastery,  Peter 


166  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

Abelard,  and  its  earliest  Abbess,  Heloisa  —  once  united 
in  studies,  in  love,  in  their  unhappy  nuptial  engage 
ments,  and  in  penitential  sorrow  ;  but  now,  our  hope 
is,  reunited  for  e\7er  in  bless.' 

The  SATIRES  of  Pope,  and  what  under  another  name 
are  satires,  viz.  his  MORAL  EPISTLES,  offer  a  second 
variety  of  evidence  to  his  voluptuous  indolence.  They 
offend  against  philosophic  truth  more  heavily  than  the 
Essay  on  Man  ;  but  not  in  the  same  way.  The  Essay 
on  Man  sins  chiefly  by  want  of  central  principle,  and 
by  want  therefore  of  all  coherency  amongst  the  sepa 
rate  thoughts.  But  taken  as  separate  thoughts,  viewed 
in  the  light  of  fragments  and  brilliant  aphorisms,  the 
majority  of  the  passages  have  a  mode  of  truth  ;  not  of 
truth  central  and  coherent,  but  of  truth  angular  and 
splintered.  The  Satires,  on  the  other  hand,  were  of 
false  origin.  They  arose  in  a  sense  of  talent  for  caus 
tic  effects,  unsupported  by  any  satiric  heart.  Pope  had 
neither  the  malice  (except  in  the  most  fugitive  form) 
which  thirsts  for  leaving  wounds,  nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  deep  moral  indignation  which  burns  in  men 
whom  Providence  has  from  time  to  time  armed  with 
scourges  for  cleansing  the  sanctuaries  of  truth  or  jus 
tice.  He  was  contented  enough  with  society  as  he 
found  it :  bad  it  might  be,  but  it  was  good  enough  for 
him :  and  it  was  the  merest  self-delusion  if  at  any 
moment  the  instinct  of  glorying  his  satiric  mission  (the 
magnificabo  apostolatwn  meum)  persuaded  him  that  in 
his  case  it  might  be  said  —  Facit  indignatio  versum. 
The  indignation  of  Juvenal  was  not  always  very  noble 
in  its  origin,  or  pure  in  its  purpose  :  it  was  sometimes 
mean  in  its  quality,  false  in  its  direction,  extravagant 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  1G7 

in  its  expression  :  but  it  wasXrcmendous  in  {he  .roll  of 
its  thunders,  and  as  withering  as^lTK*-ogowFefTrfliephis- 
topheles.  Pope  having  no  such  internal  principle  of 
wrath  boiling  in  his  breast,  being  really  (if  one  must 
speak  the  truth)  in  the  most  pacific  and  charitable 
frame  of  mind  towards  all  scoundrels  whatever,  except 
such  as  might  take  it  into  their  heads  to  injure  a 
particular  Twickenham  grotto,  was  unavoidably  a 
hypocrite  of  the  first  magnitude  when  he  affected  (oik 
sometimes  really  conceited  himself)  to  be  in  a  dread 
ful  passion  with  offenders  as  a  body.  It  provokes  fits 
of  laughter,  in  a  man  who  knows  Pope's  real  nature, 
to  watch  him  in  the  process  of  brewing  the  storm  that 
spontaneously  will  not  come  ;  whistling,  like  a  mariner, 
for  a  wind  to  fill  his  satiric  sails ;  and  pumping  up  into 
his  face  hideous  grimaces  in  order  to  appear  convulsed 
with  histrionic  rage.  Pope  should  have  been  coun 
selled  never  to  write  satire,  except  on  those  evenings 
when  he  was  suffering  horribly  from  indigestion.  By 
this  means  the  indignation  would  have  been  ready- 
made.  The  rancor  against  all  mankind  would  have 
been  sincere ;  and  there  would  have  needed  to  be  no 
extra  expense  in  getting  up  the  steam.  As  it  is,  the 
short  puffs  of  anger,  the  uneasy  snorts  of  fury  in  Pope's 
satires,  give  one  painfully  the  feeling  of  a  stcarn-engine 
with  unsound  lungs.  Passion  of  any  kind  may  become 
in  some  degree  ludicrous,  when  disproportioned  to  its 
exciting  occasions.  But  it  is  never  entirely  ludicrous, 
until  it  is  self-betrayed  as  counterfeit.  Sudden  col 
lapses  of  the  manufactured  wrath,  sudden  oblivion  of 
the  criminal,  announce  Pope's  as  always  counterfeit. 
Meantime  insincerity  is  contagious.  One  falsehood 


168  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

draws  on  another.  And  having  begun  by  taking  a 
station  of  moral  censorship,  which  was  in  the  utter 
most  degree  a  self-delusion,  Pope  went  on  to  other 
self-delusions  in  reading  history  the  most  familiar,  or 
in  reporting  facts  the  most  notorious.  Warburton  had 
more  to  do  with  Pope's  satires  as  an  original  sug- 
gester,5  and  not  merely  as  a  commentator,  than  with 
any  other  section  of  his  works.  Pope  and  he  hunted 
•in  couples  over  this  field  :  and  those  who  know  the 
absolute  craziness  of  Warburton's  mind,  the  perfect 
frenzy  and  lympliaticus  error  which  possessed  him 
for  leaving  all  high-roads  of  truth  and  simplicity,  in 
order  to  trespass  over  hedge  and  ditch  after  coveys  of 
shy  paradoxes,  cannot  be  surprised  that  Pope's  good 
sense  should  often  have  quitted  him  under  such  guid 
ance. There  is,  amongst  the  earliest  poems  of 

Wordsworth,  one  which  has  interested  many  readers 
by  its  mixed  strain  of  humor  and  tenderness.  It  de 
scribes  two  thieves  who  act  in  concert  with  each  other. 
One  is  a  very  aged  man,  and  the  other  is  his  great- 
grandson  of  three  years  old  : 

'  There  are  ninety  good  years  of  fair  and  foul  weather 
Between  them,  and  both  go  a  stealing  together.' 

What  reconciles  the  reader  to  this  social  iniquity,  is 
the  imperfect  accountability  of  the  parties ;  the  one 
being  far  advanced  in  dotage,  and  the  other  an  infant. 
And  thus 

'  Into  what  sin  soever  the  couple  may  fall, 
This  child  but  half-knows  it,  and  that  not  at  all.' 

Nobody  besides  suffers  from  their  propensities  :  since 
the  child's  mother  makes  good  in  excess  all  their 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  1G9 

depredations  ;  and  nobody  is  duped  for  an  instant  by 
their  gross  attempts  at  fraud  ;  for 

'  Wherever  they  carry  their  plots  and  their  wiles, 
Every  face  in  the  village  is  dimpled  with  smiles.' 

There  was  not  the  same  disparity  of  years  between 
Pope  and  Warburton  as  between  old  Daniel  and  his 
descendant  in  the  third  generation  :  Warburton  was 
but  ten  years  younger.  And  there  was  also  this  differ 
ence,  that  in  the  case  of  the  two  thieves  neither  was 
official  ringleader :  on  the  contrary,  they  took  it  turn 
about ;  great-grandpapa  was  ringleader  to  day,  and 
the  little  great-grandson  to-morrow  : 

'  Each  in  his  turn  was  both  leader  and  led  : ' 

whereas,  in  the  connection  of  the  two  literary  accom 
plices,  the  Doctor  was  latterly  always  the  instigator  to 
any  outrage  on  good  sense  ;  and  Pope,  from  mere 
habit  of  deference  to  the  Doctor's  theology  and  theo 
logical  wig,  as  well  as  from  gratitude  for  the  Doctor's 
pugnacity  in  his  defence,  (since  Warburton  really  was 
as  good  as  a  bull-dog  in  protecting  Pope's  advance  or 
retreat,)  followed  with  docility  the  leading  of  his  reve 
rend  friend  into  any  excess  of  folly.  It  is  true,  that 
oftentimes  in  earlier  days  Pope  had  run  into  scrapes 
from  his  own  heedlessness :  and  the  Doctor  had  not 
the  merit  of  suggesting  the  escapade,  but  only  of  de 
fending  it ;  which  he  always  does  (as  sailors  express 
it)  l  with  a  will : '  for  he  never  shows  his  teeth  so 
much,  or  growls  so  ferociously,  as  when  he  suspects 
the  case  to  be  desperate..  But  in  the  satires,  although 
the  original  absurdity  comes  forward  in  the  text  of 
Pope,  and  the  Warburtonian  note  in  defence  is  a  ppar- 


170  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

ently  no  more  than  an  afterthought  of  the  good  Doctor, 
in  his  usual  style  of  threatening  to  cudgel  anybody 
who  disputes  his  friend's  assertion ;  yet  sometimes  the 
thought  expressed  and  adorned  by  the  poet  had  been 
prompted  by  the  divine.  This  only  can  account  for 
the  savage  crotchets,  paradoxes,  and  conceits,  which 
disfigure  Pope's  later  edition  of  his  satires. 

Truth,  even  of  the  most  appreciable  order,  truth  of 
history,  goes  to  wreck  continually  under  the  perversi 
ties  of  Pope's  satire  applied  to  celebrated  men  ;  and 
as  to  the  higher  truth  of  philosophy,  it  was  still  less 
likely  to  survive  amongst  the  struggles  for  striking 
effects  and  startling  contrasts.  But  worse  are  Pope's 
satiric  sketches  of  women,  as  carrying  the  same  out 
rages  on  good  sense  to  a  far  greater  excess ;  and  as 
these  expose  the  false  principles  on  which  he  worked 
more  brightly,  and  have  really  been  the  chief  ground 
of  tainting  Pope's  memory  with  the  reputation  of  a 
woman-hater,  (which  he  was  not,)  they  are  worthy  of 
separate  notice. 

It  is  painful  to  follow  a  man  of  genius  through  a 
succession  of  inanities  descending  into  absolute  non 
sense,  and  of  vulgarities  sometimes  terminating  in 
brutalities.  These  are  harsh  words,  but  not  harsh 
enough  by  half  as  applied  to  Pope's  gallery  of  female 
portraits.  What  is  the  key  to  his  failure  ?  It  is  simply 
that,  throughout  this  whole  satiric  section,  not  one 
word  is  spoken  in  sincerity  of  heart,  or  with  any 
vestige  of  self-belief.  The  case  was  one  of  those 
so  often  witnessed,  where  either  the  indiscretion  of 
friends,  or  some  impulse  of  erring  vanity  in  the  writer, 
had  put  him  upon  undertaking  a  task  in  which  he  had 


ALEXANDER   POPE.  171 

too  little  natural  interest  to  have  either  thought  upon  it 
with  originality,  or  observed  upon  it  with  fidelity. 
Sometimes  the  mere  coercion  of  system  drives  a  man 
into  such  a  folly.  He  treats  a  subject  which  branches 
into  A,  B,  and  C.  Having  discussed  A  and  B,  upon 
which  he  really  had  something  to  offer,  he  thinks  it 
necessary  to  integrate  his  work  by  going  forward  to 
C,  on  which  he  knows  nothing  at  all,  and,  what  is  even 
worse,  for  which  in  his  heart  he  cares  nothing  at  all. 
Fatal  is  all  falsehood.  Nothing  is  so  sure  to  betray 
a  man  into  the  abject  degradation  of  self-exposure  as 
pretending  to  a  knowledge  which  he  has  not,  or  to  an 
enthusiasm  which  is  counterfeit.  By  whatever  mistake 
Pope  found  himself  pledged  to  write  upon  the  char 
acters  of  women,  it  was  singularly  unfortunate  that  he 
had  begun  by  denying  to  women  any  characters  at 
all. 

'  Matter  too  soft  a  lasting  mark  to  bear, 
And  best  distinguished  by  black,  brown,  or  fair.' 

Well  for  him  if  he  had  stuck  to  that  liberal  doctrine  : 
1  Least  said,  soonest  mended.'  And  much  he  could 
not  easily  have  said  upon  a  subject  that  he  had  pro 
nounced  all  but  a  nonentity.  In  Van  Troll's  work,  or 
in  Horrebow's,  upon  Iceland,  there  is  a  well  known 
chapter  regularly  booked  in  the  index — Concerning 
the  Snakes  of  Iceland.  This  is  the  title,  the  running 
rubric  ;  and  the  body  of  the  chapter  consists  of  these 
words  — 4  There  are  no  snakes  in  Iceland.'  That 
chapter  is  soon  studied,  and  furnishes  very  little  open 
ing  for  foot-notes  or  supplements.  Some  people  have 
thought  that  Mr.  Van  T.  might  with  advantage  have 
amputated  this  unsnaky  chapter  on  snakes  ;  but  at 


172  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

least  nobody  can  accuse  him  of  forgetting  his  own 
extermination  of  snakes  from  Iceland,  and  proceed 
ing  immediately  to  describe  such  horrible  snakes  as 
eye  had  never  beheld  amongst  the  afflictions  of  the 
island.  Snakes  there  are  none,  he  had  protested  ;  and, 
true  to  his  word,  the  faithful  man  never  wanders  into 
any  description  of  Icelandic  snakes.  Not  so  our  satiric 
poet.  He,  with  Mahometan  liberality,  had  denied 
characters,  i.  e.  souls,  to  women.  '  Most  women,'  he 
says,  '  haye  no  character  at  all ;  ' 6  yet,  for  all  that, 
finding  himself  pledged  to  treat  this  very  subject  of 
female  characters,  he  introduces  us  to  a  museum  of 
monsters  in  that  department,  such  as  few  fancies  could 
create,  and  no  logic  can  rationally  explain.  What 
was  he  to  do  ?  He  had  entered  upon  a  theme  con 
cerning  which,  as  the  result  has  shown,  he  had  not 
one  solitary  thought  —  good,  bad,  or  indifferent.  Total 
bankruptcy  was  impending.  Yet  he  was  aware  of  a 
deep  interest  connected  with  this  section  of  his  satires; 
and,  to  meet  this  interest,  he  invented  what  was  pun 
gent,  when  he  found  nothing  to  record  which  was 
true. 

It  is  a  consequence  of  this  desperate  resource  — 
this  plunge  into  absolute  fiction  —  that  the  true  objec 
tion  to  Pope's  satiric  sketches  of  the  other  sex  ought 
not  to  arise  amongst  women,  as  the  people  that  suffered 
by  his  malice,  but  amongst  readers  generally,  as  the 
people  that  suffered  by  his  fraud.  He  has  promised 
one  thing,  and  done  another.  He  has  promised  a 
chapter  in  the  zoology  of  nature,  and  he  gives  us  a 
chapter  in  the  fabulous  zoology  of  the  herald's  college. 
A  tigress  is  not  much  within  ordinary  experience,  still 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  173 

there  is  such  a  creature  ;  and  in  default  of  a  better 
choice,  that  is,  of  a  choice  settling  on  a  more  familiar 
object,  we  are  content  to  accept  a  good  description  of 
a  tigress.  We  are  reconciled ;  but  we  are  not  recon 
ciled  to  a  description,  however  spirited,  of  a  basilisk. 
A  viper  might  do ;  but  not,  if  you  please,  a  dragoness 
or  a  harpy.  The  describcr  knows,  as  well  as  any  of 
us  the  spectators  know,  that  he  is  romancing  ;  the 
incredulus  odi  overmasters  us  all ;  and  we  cannot 
submit  to  be  detained  by  a  picture  which,  according 
to  the  shifting  humor  of  the  poet,  angry  or  laughing, 
is  a  lie  where  it  is  not  a  jest,  is  an  affront  to  the  truth 
of  nature,  where  it  is  not  confessedly  an  extravagance 
of  drollery.  In  a  playful  fiction,  we  can  submit  with 
pleasure  to  the  most  enormous  exaggerations ;  but 
then  they  must  be  offered  as  such.  These  of  Pope's 
are  not  so  offered,  but  as  serious  portraits;  and  in 
that  character  they  affect  us  as  odious  and  malignant 
libels.  The  malignity  was  not  real,  —  as  indeed 
nothing  was  real,  but  a  condiment  for  hiding  insi 
pidity.  Let  us  examine  two  or  three  of  them,  equally 
with  a  view  to  the  possibility  of  the  object  described, 
and  to  the  delicacy  of  the  description. 

'  How  soft  is  Silia  !  fearful  to  offend; 
The  frail  one's  advocate,  the  weak  one's  friend. 
To  her  Calista  proved  her  conduct  nice  ; 
And  good  Simplicius  asks  of  her  advice.' 

Here  we  have  the  general  outline  of  Silia's  charac 
ter  ;  not  particularly  striking,  but  intelligible.  She  has 
a  suavity  of  disposition  that  accommodates  itself  to 
all  infirmities.  And  the  worst  thing  one  apprehends  in 
her  is  —  falseness :  people  with  such  honeyed  breath 


174  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

for  present  frailties,  are  apt  to  exhale  their  rancor  upon 
them  when  a  little  out  of  hearing.  But  really  now 
this  is  no  foible  of  Silia's.  One  likes  her  very  well, 
and  would  be  glad  of  her  company  to  tea.  For  the 
dramatic  reader  knows  who  Calista  is;  and  if  Silia 
has  indulgence  for  Aer,  she  must  be  a  thoroughly 
tolerant  creature.  Where  is  her  fault,  then  ?  You 
shall  hear  — 

1  Sudden  she  storms  !  she  raves !  —  You  tip  the  wink ; 
But  spare  your  censure  ;  Silia  does  not  drink. 
All  eyes  may  see  from  what  the  change  arose  : 
All  eyes  may  see  — (see  what  ?)  —  a  pimple  on  her  nose.' 

Silia,  the  dulcet,  is  suddenly  transformed  into  Silia  the 
fury.  But  why  ?  The  guest  replies  to  that  question 
by  winking  at  his  fellow-guest ;  which  most  atrocious 
of  vulgarities  is  expressed  by  the  most  odiously  vul 
gar  of  phrases  —  he  tips  the  wink  —  meaning  to  tip 
an  insinuation  that  Silia  is  intoxicated.  Not  so,  says 
the  poet  —  drinking  is  no  fault  of  hers  —  everybody 
may  see  [why  not  the  winker  then  ?]  that  what  upsets 
her  temper  is  a  pimple  on  the  nose.  Let  us  under 
stand  you,  Mr.  Pope.  A  pimple  !  —  what,  do  you 
mean  to  say  that  pimples  jump  up  on  ladies'  faces  at 
the  unfurling  of  a  fan  ?  If  they  really  did  so  in  the 
12th  of  George  II.,  and  a  lady,  not  having  a  pimple 
on  leaving  her  dressing-room,  might  grow  one  whilst 
taking  tea,  then  we  think  that  a  saint  might  be  excused 
for  storming  a  little.  But  how  is  it  that  the  wretch 
who  winks,  does  not  see  the  pimple,  the  causa  teter- 
rima  of  the  sudden  wrath ;  and  Silia,  who  has  no 
looking-glass  at  her  girdle,  does?  And  then  who  is  it 


ALEXANDER   POPE.  175 

that  Silia  '  storms'  at  —  the  company,  or  the  pimple  ? 
If  at  the  company,  we  cannot  defend  her;  but  if  at 
the  pirnple  —  oh,  by  all  means — storm  and  welcome  — 
she  can't  say  anything  worse  than  it  deserves.  Wrong 
or  right,  however,  what  moral  does  Silia  illustrate 
more  profound  than  this — that  a  particular  lady, 
otherwise  very  amiable,  falls  into  a  passion  upon 
suddenly  finding  her  face  disfigured?  But  then  one, 
remembers  the  song  — i  My  face  is  my  fortune,  sir, 
she  said,  sir,  she  said  ' —  it  is  a  part  of  every  woman's 
fortune,  so  long  as  she  is  young.  Now  to  find  one's 
fortune  dilapidating  by  changes  so  rapid  as  this  — 
pimples  rising  as  suddenly  as  April  clouds  —  is  far  too 
trying  a  calamity,  that  a  little  fretfulness  should  merit 
either  reproach  or  sneer.  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  was, 
that  the  man  who  cared  little  for  dinner,  could  not  be 
reasonably  supposed  to  care  much  for  anything.  More 
truly  it  may  be  said,  that  the  woman  who  is  reckless 
about  her  face  must  be  an  unsafe  person  to  trust  with 
a  secret.  But  seriously,  what  moral,  what  philosophic 
thought  can  be  exemplified  by  a  case  so  insipid,  arid  so 
imperfectly  explained  as  this?  But  we  must  move  on. 
Next,  then,  let  us  come  to  the  case  of  Narcissa :  — 

1  Odious!  in  noolhn  ? 7  'Twould  a  saint  provoke,' 
Were  the  last  words  that  poor  Narcissa  spoke. 
'  No,  let  a  charming  chintz  and  Brussels  lace 
Wrap  my  cold  limbs  and  shade  rny  lifeless  face  ; 
One  would  not  sure  be  frightful  when  one's  dead  : 
And,  Betty,  give  this  cheek  a  little  red.' 

Well,  what's  the  matter  now  ?  What's  amiss  with 
Narcissa,  that  a  satirist  must  be  called  in  to  hold  an 
inquest  upon  her  corpse,  and  take  Betty's  evidence 


176  ALEXANDER   POPE. 

against  her  mistress  ?  Upon  hearing  any  such  ques 
tion,  Pope  would  have  started  up  in  the  character 
(very  unusual  with  him)  of  religious  censor,  and 
demanded  whether  one  approved  of  a  woman's  fixing 
her  last  dying  thought  upon  the  attractions  of  a  person 
so  soon  to  dwell  with  darkness  and  worms?  Was 
that  right  —  to  provide  for  coquetting  in  her  coffin? 
Why  no,  not  strictly  right,  its  impropriety  cannot  be 
denied ;  but  what  strikes  one  even  more  is,  the 
suspicion  that  it  may  be  a  lie.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
there  are  two  insurmountable  objections  to  the  case  of 
Narcissa,  even  supposing  it  not  fictitious  —  viz.  first, 
that  so  far  as  it  offends  at  all,  it  offends  the  religious 
sense,  and  not  any  sense  of  which  satire  takes  charge ; 
secondly,  that  without  reference  to  the  special  func 
tions  of  satire,  any  form  of  poetry  whatever,  or  any 
mode  of  moral  censure,  concerns  itself  not  at  all  with 
anomalies.  If  the  anecdote  of  Narcissa  were  other 
than  a  fiction,  then  it  was  a  case  too  peculiar  and 
idiosyncratic  to  furnish  a  poetic  illustration ;  neither 
moral  philosophy  nor  poetry  condescends  to  the  mon 
strous  or  the  abnormal ;  both  one  and  the  other  deal 
with  the  catholic  and  the  representative. 

There  is  another  Narcissa  amongst  Pope's  tulip- 
beds  of  ladies,  who  is  even  more  open  to  criticism  — 
because  offering  not  so  much  an  anomaly  in  one 
single  trait  of  her  character,  as  an  utter  anarchy  in  all. 
Flavia  and  Philomcde  again  present  the  same  mul 
titude  of  features  with  the  same  absence  of  all  central 
principle  for  locking  them  into  unity.  They  must 
have  been  distracting  to  themselves ;  and  they  aro  dis 
tracting  to  us  a  century  later.  Philomcde,  by  the  way, 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  177 

stands  for  the  second  Duchess  of  Maryborough,7  daugh 
ter  of  the  great  Duke.  And  these  names  lead  us 
naturally  to  Sarah,  the  original,  and  (one  may  call 
her)  the  historical  Duchess,  who  is  libelled  under  the 
name  of  Atossa.  This  character  amongst  all  Pope's 
satiric  sketches  has  been  celebrated  the  most,  with  the 
single  exception  of  his  Atticus.  But  the  Atticus 
rested  upon  a  different  basis —  it  was  true  ;  and  it  was 
noble.  Addison  really  had  the  infirmities  of  envious 
jealousy,  of  stimulated  friendship,  and  of  treacherous 
collusion  with  his  friend's  enemies  —  which  Pope 
imputed  to  him  under  the  happy  parisyllabic  name  of 
Atticus ;  and  the  mode  of  imputation,  the  tone  of 
expostulation  —  indignant  as  regarded  Pope's  own 
injuries,  but  yet  full  of  respect  for  Addison,  and  even 
of  sorrowful  tenderness;  all  this  in  combination  with 
the  interest  attached  to  a  feud  between  two  men  so 
eminent,  has  sustained  the  Atticus  as  a  classic  remem 
brance  in  satiric  literature.  But  the  Atossa  is  a  mere 
chaos  of  incompatibilities,  thrown  together  as  into 
some  witch's  cauldron.  The  witch,  however,  had 
sometimes  an  unaffected  malignity,  a  sincerity  of 
venom  in  her  wrath,  which  acted  chemically  as  a 
solvent  for  combining  the  heterogeneous  ingredients  in 
her  kettle  ;  whereas  the  want  of  truth  and  earnestness 
in  Pope  leave  the  incongruities  in  his  kettle  of  descrip 
tion  to  their  natural  incoherent  operation  on  the  reader. 
We  have  a  great  love  for  the  great  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough,  though  too  young  by  a  hundred  years8  or  so 
to  have  been  that  true  and  faithful  friend  which,  as' 
contemporaries,  we  might  have  been. 

What  we  love  Sarah  for,  is  partly  that  she  has  been 


178  ALEXANDER   POPE. 

ill  used  by  all  subsequent  authors,  one  copying  from 
anotber  a  fury  against  ber  whicb  even  in  the  first  of 
these  authors  was  not  real.  And  a  second  thing  which 
we  love  is  her  very  violence,  qualified  as  it  was.  Sul 
phureous  vapors  of  wrath  rose  up  in  columns  from  the 
crater  of  her  tempestuous  nature  against  him  that 
deeply  offended  her,  but  she  neglected  petty  wrongs. 
Wait,  however,  let  the  volcanic  lava  have  time  to  cool, 
and  all  returned  to  absolute  repose.  It  has  been  said 
that  she  did  not  write  her  own  book.  We  are  of  a 
different  opinion.  The  mutilations  of  the  book  were 
from  other  and  inferior  hands :  but  the  main  texture 
of  the  narrative  and  of  the  comments  were,  and  must 
have  been,  from  herself,  since  there  could  have  been 
no  adequate  motive  for  altering  them,  and  nobody  else 
could  have  had  the  same  motive  for  uttering  them.  It 
is  singular  that,  in  the  case  of  the  Duchess,  as  well  as 
that  of  the  Lady  M.  W.  Montagu,  the  same  two  men, 
without  concert,  were  the  original  aggressors  amongst 
the  gens  de  plume,  viz.  Pope,  and  subsequently  Horace 
Walpole.  Pope  suffered  more  from  his  own  libellous 
assault  upon  Atossa,  through  a  calumny  against  him 
self  rebounding  from  it,  than  Atossa  could  have  done 
from  the  point-blank  shot  of  fifty  such  batteries.  The 
calumny  circulated  was,  that  he  had  been  bribed  by 
the  Duchess  with  a  thousand  pounds  to  suppress  the 
character  —  which  of  itself  was  bad  enough  ;  but  as 
the  consummation  of  baseness  it  was  added,  that  after 
all,  in  spite  of  the  bribe,  he  caused  it  to  be  published. 
This  calumny  we  believe  to  have  been  utterly  without 
foundation.  It  is  repelled  by  Pope's  character,  inca 
pable  of  any  act  so  vile,  and  by  his  position,  needing 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  179 

no  bribes.  But  what  we  wish  to  add  is,  that  the 
calumny  is  equally  repelled  by  Sarah's  character, 
incapable  of  any  propitiation  so  abject.  Pope  wanted 
no  thousand  pounds ;  but  neither  did  Sarah  want  his 
clemency.  He  would  have  rejected  the  .£1000  cheque 
with  scorn  ;  but  she  would  have  scorned  to  offer  it. 
Pope  cared  little  for  Sarah ;  but  Sarah  cared  less  for 
Pope. 

What  is  offensive,  and  truly  so,  to  every  generous 
reader,  may  be  expressed  in  two  items  :  first,  not  pre 
tending  to  have  been  himself  injured  by  the  Duchess, 
Pope  was  in  this  instance  meanly  adopting  some  third 
person's  malice,  which  sort  of  intrusion  into  other 
people's  quarrels  is  a  sycophantic  act,  even  where 
it  may  not  have  rested  upon  a  sycophantic  motive ; 
secondly,  that  even  as  a  second-hand  malice  it  is  not 
sincere.  More  shocking  than  the  malice  is  the  self- 
imposture  of  the  malice  :  in  the  very  act  of  puffing  out 
his  cheeks  like  ^Eolus,  with  ebullient  fury,  and  con 
ceiting  himself  to  be  in  a  passion  perfectly  diabolic, 
Pope  is  really  unmoved,  or  angry  only  by  favor  of 
dyspepsy ;  and  at  a  word  of  kind  flattery  from  Sarah, 
(whom  he  was  quite  the  man  to  love,)  though  not  at 
the  clink  of  her  thousand  guineas,  he  would  have 
fallen  at  her  feet,  and  kissed  her  beautiful  hand  with 
rapture.  To  enter  a  house  of  hatred  as  a  junior  part 
ner,  and  to  take  the  stock  of  malice  at  a  valuation  — 
(we  copy  from  advertisements)  —  that  is  an  ignoble 
act.  But  then  how  much  worse  in  the  midst  of  all 
this  unprovoked  wrath,  real  as  regards  the  persecution 
which  it  meditates,  but  false  as  the  flatteries  of  a  slave 
in  relation  to  its  pretended  grounds,  for  the  spectator 


180  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

to  find  its  malice  counterfeit,  and  the  fury  only  a 
plagiarism  from  some  personated  fury  in  an  opera. 

There  is  no  truth  in  Pope's  satiric  sketches  of 
women  —  not  even  colorable  truth  ;  but  if  there  were, 
how  frivolous,  how  hollow,  to  erect  into  solemn  mon 
umental  protestations  against  the  whole  female  sex 
what,  if  examined,  turn  out  to  be  pure  casual  eccen 
tricities,  or  else  personal  idiosyncrasies,  or  else  foibles 
shockingly  caricatured,  but,  above  all,  to  be  such 
foibles  as  could  not  have  connected  themselves  with 
sincere  feelings  of  indignation  in  any  rational  mind. 

The  length  and  breadth  [almost  we  might  say  — 
the  depth]  of  the  shallowness,  which  characterizes 
Pope's  Philosophy,  cannot  be  better  reflected  than 
from  the  four  well  known  lines  — 

'For  modes  of  faith  let  graceless  zealots  fight, 
His  can't  be  wrong,  whose  life  is  in  the  right : 
For  forms  of  government  let  fools  contest, 
Whate'er  is  best  administered  is  best.' 

In  the  first  couplet,  what  Pope  says  is,  that  a  life, 
;which  is  irreproachable  on  a  human  scale  of  appre 
ciation,  neutralizes  and  practically  cancels  all  possible 
errors  of  creed,  opinion,  or  theory.  But  this  schism 
between  the  moral  life  of  man  and  his  moral  faith, 
which  takes  for  granted  that  cither  may  possibly  be 
true,  whilst  the  other  is  entirely  false,  can  wear  a 
moment's  plausibility  only  by  understanding  life  in  so 
limited  a  sense  as  the  sum  of  a  man's  external  actions, 
appreciable  by  man.  He  whose  life  is  in  the  right, 
cannot,  says  Pope,  in  any  sense  calling  for  blame, 
have  a  wrong  faith ;  that  is,  if  his  life  were  right,  his 
creed  might  be  disregarded.  But  the  answer  is — that 


ALEXANDER    TOPE.  181 

his  life,  according  to  any  adequate  idea  of  life  in  a 
moral  creature,  cannot  be  in  the  right  unless  in  so  far 
as  it  bends  to  the  influences  of  a  true  faith.  How 
feeble  a  conception  must  that  man  have  of  the  infinity 
which  lurks  in  a  human  spirit,  who  can  persuade  him 
self  that  its  total  capacities  of  life  are  exhaustible  by 
the  few  gross  acts  incident  to  social  relations  or  open  to 
human  valuation  !  An  act,  which  may  be  necessarily 
limited  and  without  opening  for  variety,  may  involve 
a  large  variety  of  motives  —  motives  again,  meaning 
grounds  of  action  that  are  distinctly  recognised  for 
such,  may  (numerically  speaking)  amount  to  nothing 
at  all  when  compared  with  the  absolutely  infinite 
influxes  of  feeling  or  combinations  of  feeling  that  vary 
the  thoughts  of  man  ;  and  the  true  internal,  acts  of 
moral  man  are  his  thoughts  —  his  yearnings  —  his 
aspirations  —  his  sympathies  —  his  repulsions  of  heart. 
This  is  the  life  of  man  as  it  is  appreciable  by  heavenly 
eyes.  The  scale  of  an  alphabet  —  how  narrow  is 
that !  Four  or  six  and  twenty  letters,  and  all  is 
finished.  Syllables  range  through  a  wider  compass. 
Words  are  yet  more  than  syllables.  But  what  are 
words  to  thoughts  ?  Every  word  has  a  thought  corres 
ponding  to  it,  so  that  not  by  so  much  as  one  solitary 
counter  can  the  words  outrun  the  thoughts.  But  every 
thought  has  not  a  word  corresponding  to  it :  so  that 
the  thoughts  may  outrun  the  words  by  many  a  thou 
sand  counters.  In  a  developed  nature  they  do  so. 
But  what  are  the  thoughts  when  set  against  the  modifi 
cations  of  thoughts  by  feelings,  hidden  even  from  him 
that  feels  them  —  or  against  the  inter-combinations  of 
such  modifications  with  others  —  complex  with  com- 


182  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

plex,  decomplex  with  decomplex  —  these  can  be  un 
ravelled  by  no  human  eye  !  This  is  the  infinite  music 
that  God  only  can  read  upon  the  vast  harp  of  the 
human  heart.  Some  have  fancied  that  musical  com 
binations  might  be  exhausted.  A  new  Mozart  might 
be  impossible.  All  that  he  could  do,  might  already 
have  been  done.  Music  laughs  at  that,  as  the  sea 
laughs  at  palsy  for  its  billows,  as  the  morning  laughs 
at  old  age  and  wrinkles  for  itself.  But  a  harp,  though 
a  world  in  itself,  is  but  a  narrow  world  by  comparison 
with  the  world  of  a  human  heart. 

Now  these  thoughts,  tinctured  subtly  with  the  per 
fume  and  coloring  of  human  affections,  make  up  the 
sum  of  what  merits  *«T'  izo/nv  tne  name  of  life :  and 
these  in  a  vast  proportion  depend  for  their  possibilities 
of  truth  upon  the  degree  of  approach  which  the  thinker 
makes  to  the  appropriation  of  a  pure  faith.  A  man  is 
thinking  all  day  long,  and  putting  thoughts  into  words  : 
he  is  acting  comparatively  seldom.  But  are  any  man's 
thoughts  brought  into  conformity  with  the  openings  to 
truth  that  a  faith  like  the  Christian's  faith  suggests  ? 
Far  from  it.  Probably  there  never  was  one  thought, 
from  the  foundation  of  the  earth,  that  has  passed 
through  the  mind  of  man,  which  did  not  offer  some 
blemish,  some  sorrowful  shadow  of  pollution,  when  it 
came  up  for  review  before  a  heavenly  tribunal :  that 
is,  supposing  it  a  thought  entangled  at  all  with  human 
interests  or  human  passions.  But  it  is  the  key  in 
which  the  thoughts  move,  that  .determines  the  stage 
of  moral  advancement.  So  long  as  we  are  human, 
many  among  the  numerous  and  evanescent  elements 
that  -enter  (half-observed  or  not  observed  at  all)  into 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  183 

our  thoughts,  cannot  but  be  tainted.  But  the  govern 
ing,  the  predominant  element  it  is  which  gives  the 
character  and  the  tendency  to  the  thought :  and  this 
must  become  such,  must  become  a  governing  element, 
through  the  quality  of  the  ideals  deposited  in  the  heart 
by  the  quality  of  the  religious  faith.  One  pointed 
illustration  of  this  suggests  itself  from  another  poem 
of  Pope's,  in  which  he  reiterates  his  shallow  doctrine. 
In  his  Universal  Prayer  he  informs  us,  that  it  can 
matter  little  whether  we  pray  to  Jehovah  or  to  Jove, 
so  long  as  in  either  case  we  pray  to  the  First  Cause. 
To  contemplate  God  under  that  purely  ontological 
relation  to  the  world,  would  have  little  more  operative 
value  for  what  is  most  important  in  man,  than  if  he 
prayed  to  gravitation.  And  it  would  have  been  more 
honest  in  Pope  to  say,  as  virtually  he  has  said  in  the 
couplet  under  examination,  that  it  can  matter  little 
whether  man  prays  at  all  to  any  being.  It  deepens 
the  scandal  of  this  sentiment,  coming  from  a  poet 
professing  Christianity,  that  a  clergyman  (holding 
preferment  in  the  English  Church)  viz.,  Dr.  Joseph 
Warton,  justifies  Pope  for  this  Pagan  opinion,  upon 
the  ground  that  an  ancient  philosopher  had  uttered  the 
same  opinion  long  before.  What  sort  of  philosopher? 
A  Christian  ?  No :  but  a  Pagan.  What  then  is  the 
value  of  the  justification  ?  To  a  Pagan  it  could  be 
no  blame  that  he  should  avow  a  reasonable  Pagan 
doctrine.  In  Irish  phrase,  it  was  'true  for  him."* 
Amongst  gods  that  were  all  utterly  alienated  from 
any  scheme  of  moral  government,  all  equally  remote 
from  the  executive  powers  for  sustaining  such  a 
government,  so  long  as  there  was  a  practical  anarchy 


184  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

and  rivalship  amongst  themselves,  there  could  be  no 
sufficient  reason  for  addressing  vows  to  one  rather 
than  to  another.  The  whole  pantheon  collectively 
could  do  nothing  for  moral  influences  ;  a  fortiori,  no 
separate  individual  amongst  them.  Pope  indirectly 
confesses  this  elsewhere  by  his  own  impassioned 
expression  of  Christian  feelings,  though  implicitly 
denying  it  here  by  his  mere  understanding.  For  he 
reverberates  elsewhere,  by  deep  echoes,  that  power  in 
Christianity,  which  even  in  a  legendary  tale  he  durst 
not  on  mere  principles  of  good  sense  and  taste  have 
ascribed  to  Paganism.  For  instance,  how  could  a 
God,  having  no  rebellion  to  complain  of  in  man, 
pretend  to  any  occasion  of  large  forgiveness  of  man, 
or  of  framing  means  for  reconciling  this  forgiveness 
with  his  own  attribute  of  perfect  holiness  ?  What 
room,  therefore,  for  ideals  of  mercy,  tenderness,  long- 
suffering,  under  any  Pagan  religion  —  under  any  wor 
ship  of  Jove !  How  again  from  gods,  disfigured 
by  fleshly  voluptuousness  in  every  mode,  could  any 
countenance  be  derived  to  an  awful  ideal  of  purity  ? 
Accordingly  we  find,  that  even  among  the  Romans 
(the  most  advanced,  as  regards  moral  principle,  of 
all  heathen  nations)  neither  the  deep  fountain  of 
benignity,  nor  that  of  purity,  was  unsealed  in  man's 
heart.  So  much  of  either  was  sanctioned  as  could 
fall  within  the  purposes  of  the  magistrate,  but  beyond 
that  level  neither  fountain  could  have  been  permitted 
to  throw  up  its  column  of  water,  nor  could  in  fact  have 
had  any  impulse  to  sustain  it  in  ascending;  and  not 
merely  because  it  would  have  been  repressed  by 
ridicule  as  a  deliration  of  the  human  mind,  but  also 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  185 

because  it  would  have  been  frowned  upon  gravely  by 
the  very  principle' of  the  Roman  polity,  as  wandering 
away  from  civic  objects.  Even  for  so  much  of  these 
great  restorative  ventilations  as  Rome  enjoyed,  she 
was  indebted  not  to  her  religion,  but  to  elder  forces 
that  act  in  spite  of  her  religion,  viz.  the  original  law 
written  upon  the  human  heart.  Now,  on  the  other 
hand,  Christianity  has  left  a  separate  system  of  ideals 
amongst  men,  which  (as  regards  their  development) 
are  continually  growing  in  authority.  Waters,  after 
whatever  course  of  wandering,  rise  to  the  level  of 
their  original  springs.  Christianity  lying  so  far  above 
all  other  fountains  of  religious  influence,  no  wonder 
fhat  its  irrigations  rise  to  altitudes  otherwise  unknown, 
and  from  which  the  distribution  to  every  level  of 
society  becomes  comparatively  easy.  Those  men  are 
reached  oftentimes  —  choosing  or  not  choosing  —  by 
the  healing  streams,  who  have  not  sought  them  nor 
even  recognised  them.  Infidels  of  the  most  deter 
mined  class  talk  in  Christian  lands  the  morals  of 
Christianity,  and  exact  that  morality  with  their  hearts, 
constantly  mistaking  it  for  a  morality  co-extensive  with 
man  ;  and  why  ?  Simply  from  having  been  moulded 
unawares  by  its  universal  pressure  through  infancy, 
childhood,  manhood,  in  the  nursery,  in  the  school,  in 
the  market-place.  Pope  himself,  not  by  system  or  by 
affectation  an  infidel,  not  in  any  coherent  sense  a 
doubter,  but  a  careless  and  indolent  assenter  to  such 
doctrines  of  Christianity  as  his  own  Church  prominently 
put  forward,  or  as  social  respectability  seemed  to 
enjoin,  —  Pope,  therefore,  so  far  a  very  lukewarm 
Christian,  was  yet  unconsciously  to  himself  searched 


186  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

profoundly  by  the  Christian  types  of  purity.     This  we 
may  read  in  his 

'  Hark,  the  herald  angels  say, 
Sister  spirit,  come  away ! ' 

Or,  again,  as  some  persons  read  the  great  lessons  of 
spiritual  ethics  more  pathetically  in  those  that  have 
transgressed  them  than  in  those  that  have  been  faithful 
to  the  end  —  read  them  in  the  Magdalen  that  fades 
away  in  penitential  tears  rather  than  in  the  virgin 
martyr  triumphant  on  the  scaffold  —  we  may  see  in 
his  own  Eloisa,  and  in  her  fighting  with  the  dread 
powers  let  loose  upon  her  tempestuous  soul,  how 
profoundly  Pope  also  had  drunk  from  the  streams 
of  Christian  sentiment  through  which  a  new  fountain 
of  truth  had  ripened  a  new  vegetation  upon  earth. 
What  was  it  that  Eloisa  fought  with?  What  power 
afflicted  her  trembling  nature,  that  any  Pagan  religions 
could  have  evoked  ?  The  human  love, « the  nympho- 
lepsy  of  ihe  fond  despair,'  might  have  existed  in  a 
Vestal  Virgin  of  ancient  Rome  :  but  in  the  Vestal  what 
counter-influence  could  have  come  into  conflict  with 
the  passion  of  love  through  any  operation  whatever  of 
religion  ?  None  of  any  ennobling  character  that  could 
reach  the  Vestal's  own  heart.  The  way  in  which  reli 
gion  connected  itself  with  the  case  was  through  a  tra 
ditional  superstition  —  not  built  upon  any  fine  spiritual 
sense  of  female  chastity  as  dear  to  heaven  —  but  upon 
a  gross  fear  of  alienating  a  tutelary  goddess  by  offering 
an  imperfect  sacrifice.  This  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice 
of  the  natural  household 9  charities  in  a  few  injured 
women  on  the  altar  of  the  goddess,  was  selfish  in  all 


ALEXANDER   P0\£:  187 

its  stages  —  selfish  in  the  dark  deitythnt-eould  be 
pleased  by  the  sufferings  of  a  human  being  simply  as 
sufferings,  and  not  at  all  under  any  fiction  that  they 
were  voluntary  ebullitions  of  religious  devotion  — 
selfish  in  the  senate  and  people  who  demanded  these 
sufferings  as  a  ransom  paid  through  sighs  and  tears  for 
their  ambition  —  selfish  in  the  Vestal  herself,  as  sus 
tained  altogether  by  fear  of  a  punishment  too  terrific 
to  face,  sustained  therefore  by  the  meanest  principle 
in  her  nature.  But  in  Eloisa  how  grand  is  the  col 
lision  between  deep  religious  aspirations  and  the  per 
secuting  phantoms  of  her  undying  human  passion  ! 
The  Vestal  feared  to  be  walled  up  alive  —  abandoned 
to  the  pangs  of  hunger  —  to  the  trepidations  of  dark 
ness  —  to  the  echoes  of  her  own  lingering  groans  — 
to  the  torments  perhaps  of  frenzy  rekindling  at  inter 
vals  the  decaying  agonies  of  flesh.  Was  that  what 
Eloisa  feared  ?  Punishment  she  had  none  to  appre 
hend  :  the  crime  was  past,  and  remembered  only  by 
the  criminals:  there  was  none  to  accuse  but  herself: 
there  was  none  to  judge  but  God.  Wherefore  should 
Eloisa  fear  ?  Wherefore  and  with  what  should  she 
fight?  She  fought  by  turns  against  herself  and  against 
God,  against  her  human  nature  and  against  her  spirit 
ual  yearnings.  How  grand  were  the  mysteries  of  her 
faith,  how  gracious  and  forgiving  its  condescensions  ! 
How  deep  had  been  her  human  love,  how  imperishable 
its  remembrance  on  earth  !  '  What  is  it,'  the  Roman 
Vestal  would  have  said,  l  that  this  Christian  lady  is 
afraid  of?  What  is  the  phantom  that  she  seems  to 
see  ? '  Vestal !  it  is  not  fear,  but  grief.  She  sees  an 
immeasurable  heaven  that  seems  to  touch  her  eyes :  so 


188  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

near  is  she  to  its  love.  Suddenly,  an  Abelard  —  the 
glory  of  his  race  —  appears,  that  seems  to  touch  her 
lips.  The  heavens  recede  and  diminish  to  a  starry 
point  twinkling  in  an  unfathomable  abyss ;  they  are  all 
but  lost  for  her.  Fire,  it  is  in  Eloisa  that  searches 
fire  :  the  holy  that  rights  with  the  earthly  ;  fire  that 
cleanses  with  fire  that  consumes  :  like  cavalry  the  two 
fires  wheel  and  counterwheel,  advancing  and  retreat 
ing,  charging  and  countercharging  through  and  through 
each  other.  Eloisa  trembles,  but  she  trembles  as  a 
guilty  creature  before  a  tribunal  unveiled  within  the 
secrecy  of  her  own  nature :  there  was  no  such  trem 
bling  in  the  heathen  worlds,  for  there  was  no  such 
secret  tribunal.  Eloisa  fights  with  a  shadowy  enemy  : 
there  was  no  such  fighting  for  Roman  Vestals  :  because 
all  the  temples  of  our  earth,  (which  is  the  crowned 
Vesta,)  no,  nor  all  the  glory  of  her  altars,  nor  all  the 
pomp  of  her  cruelties,  could  cite  from  the  depths  of  a 
human  spirit  any  such  fearful  shadow  as  Christian 
faith  evokes  from  an  afflicted  conscience. 

Pope,  therefore,  wheresoever  his  heart  speaks  loudly, 
shows  how  deep  had  been  his  early  impressions  from 
Christianity.  That  is  shown  in  his  intimacy  with  Cra- 
shaw,  in  his  Eloisa,  in  his  Messiah,  in  his  adaptation  to 
Christian  purposes  of  the  Dying  Adrian,  &c.  It  is 
remarkable  also,  that  Pope  betrays,  in  all  places  where 
he  has  occasion  to  argue  about  Christianity,  how  much 
grander  and  more  faithful  to  that  great  theme  were  the 
subconscious  perceptions  of  his  heart  than  the  explicit 
commentaries  of  his  understanding.  He,  like  so  many 
others,  was  unable  to  read  or  interpret  the  testimonies 
of  his  own  heart,  which  is  a  deep  over  which  diviner 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  189 

agencies  brood  than  are  legible  to  the  intellect.  The 
cipher  written  on  his  heaven-visited  heart  was  deeper 
than  his  understanding  could  interpret. 

If  the  question  were  asked,  What  ought  to  have 
been  the  best  among  Pope's  poems  ?  most  people 
would  answer,  the  Essay  on  Man.  If  the  question 
were  asked,  What  is  the  worst?  all  people  of  judg 
ment  would  say,  the  Essay  on  Man.  Whilst  yet  in  its 
rudiments,  this  poem  claimed  the  first  place  by  the 
promise  of  its  subject;  when  finished,  by  the  utter 
failure  of  its  execution,  it  fell  into  the  last.  The  case 
possesses  a  triple  interest — first,  as  illustrating  the 
character  of  Pope  modified  by  his  situation  ;  secondly, 
as  illustrating  the  true  nature  of  that c  didactic1  poetry 
to  which  this  particular  poem  is  usually  referred; 
thirdly,  as  illustrating  the  anomalous  condition  to  which 
a  poem  so  grand  in  its  ambition  has  been  reduced  by 
the  double  disturbance  of  its  proper  movement ;  one 
disturbance  through  the  position  of  Pope,  another 
through  his  total  misconception  of  didactic  poetry. 
First,  as  regards  Pope's  situation,  it  may  seem  odd  — 
but  it  is  not  so  —  that  a  man's  social  position  should 
overrule  his  intellect.  The  scriptural  denunciation  of 
riches,  as  a  snare  to  any  man  that  is  striving  to  rise 
above  worldly  views,  applies  not  at  all  less  to  the  intel 
lect,  and  to  any  man  seeking  to  ascend  by  some 
aerial  arch  of  flight  above  ordinary  intellectual  efforts. 
Riches  are  fatal  to  those  continuities  of  energy  without 
which  there  is  no  success  of  that  magnitude.  Pope 
had  ,£800  a  year.  T/iat  seems  not  so  much.  No, 
certainly  not,  with  a  wife  and  six  children:  but  by 
accident  Pope  had  no  wife  and  no  children.  lie  was 


190  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

luxuriously  at  his  ease  :  and  this  accident  of  his  posi 
tion  in  life  fell  in  with  a  constitutional  infirmity  that 
predisposed  him  to  indolence.  Even  his  religious  faith, 
by  shutting  him  out  from  those  public  employments 
which  else  his  great  friends  would  have  been  too 
happy  to  obtain  for  hira,  aided  his  idleness,  or  some 
times  invested  it  with  a  false  character  of  conscientious 
self-denial.  He  cherished  his  religion  confessedly  as 
a  plea  for  idleness.  The  result  of  all  this  was,  that  in 
his  habits  of  thinking  and  of  study,  (if  study  we  can 
call  a  style  of  reading  so  desultory  as  his,)  Pope  be 
came  a  pure  dilettante ;  in  his  intellectual  eclecticism 
he  was  a  mere  epicure,  toying  with  the  delicacies  and 
varieties  of  literature  ;  revelling  in  the  first  bloom  of 
moral  speculations,  but  sated  immediately;  fastidiously 
retreating  from  all  that  threatened  labor,  or  that  ex 
acted  continuous  attention ;  fathoming,  throughout  all 
his  vagrancies  amongst  books,  no  foundation;  filling 
up  no  chasms ;  and  with  all  his  fertility  of  thought 
expanding  no  germs  of  new  life. 

This  career  of  luxurious  indolence  was  the  result  of 
early  luck  which  made  it  possible,  and  of  bodily  con 
stitution  which  made  it  tempting.  And  when  we  re 
member  his  youthful  introduction  to  the  highest  circles 
in  the  metropolis,  where  he  never  lost  his  footing,  we 
cannot  wonder  that,  without  any  sufficient  motive  for 
resistance,  he  should  have  sunk  passively  under  his 
constitutional  propensities,  and  should  have  fluttered 
amongst  the  flower-beds  of  literature  or  philosophy  far 
more  in  the  character  of  a  libertine  butterfly  for  casual 
enjoyment,  than  of  a  hard-working  bee  pursuing  a 
premeditated  purpose. 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  191 

Such  a  character,  strengthened  by  such  a  situation, 
would  at  any  rate  have  disqualified  Pope  for  compos 
ing  a  work  severely  philosophic,  or  where  philosophy 
did  more  than  throw  a  colored  light  of  pensiveness 
upon  some  sentimental  subject.  If  it  were  necessary 
that  the  philosophy  should  enter  substantially  into  the 
very  texture  of  the  poem,  furnishing  its  interest  and 
prescribing  its  movement,  in  that  case  Pope's  com 
bining  and  theorizing  faculty  would  have  shrunk  as 
from  the  labor  of  building  a  pyramid.  And  wo  to  him 
where.it  did  not,  as  really  happened  in  the  case  of  the 
Essay  on  Man.  For  his  faculty  of  execution  was 
under  an  absolute  necessity  of  shrinking  in  horror 
from  the  enormous  details  of  such  an  enterprise  to 
which  so  rashly  he  had  pledged  himself.  He  was 
sure  to  find  himself,  as  find  himself  he  did,  landed  in 
the  most  dreadful  embarrassment  upon  reviewing  his 
own  work.  A  work,  which,  when  finished,  was  not 
even  begun  ;  whose  arches  wanted  their  key-stones ; 
whose  parts  had  no  coherency  ;  and  whose  pillars,  in 
the  very  moment  of  being  thrown  open  to  public  view, 
were  already  crumbling  into  ruins.  This  utter  pros 
tration  of  Pope  in  a  work  so  ambitious  as  an  Essay  on 
Man  —  a  prostration  predetermined  from  the  first  by 
the  personal  circumstances  which  we  have  noticed  — 
was  rendered  still  more  irresistible  in  the  second  place 
by  the  general  misconception  in  which  Pope  shared 
as  to  the  very  meaning  of  '  didactic '  poetry.  Upon 
which  point  we  pause  to  make  an  exposition  of  our 
own  views. 

What  is  didactic  poetry  ?  What  does  «  didactic  ' 
mean  when  applied  as  a  distinguishing  epithet  to  such 


192  ALEXANDER   POPE. 

an  idea  as  a  poem  ?  The  predicate  destroys  the  sub 
ject  :  it  is  a  case  of  what  logicians  call  contradictio  in 
adjecto  —  the  unsaying  by  means  of  an  attribute  the 
very  thing  which  is  the  subject  of  that  attribute  you 
have  just  affirmed.  No  poetry  can  have  the  function 
of  teaching.  It  is  impossible  that  a  variety  of  species 
should  contradict  the  very  purpose  which  contradistin 
guishes  its  genus.  The  several  species  differ  partially  ; 
but  not  by  the  whole  idea  which  differentiates  their 
class.  Poetry,  or  any  one  of  the  fine  arts,  (all  of  which 
alike  speak  through  the  genial  nature  of  man  and  his 
excited  sensibilities,)  can  teach  only  as  nature  teaches, 
as  forests  teach,  as  the  sea  teaches,  as  infancy 
teaches,  viz.  by  deep  impulse,  by  hieroglyphic  sugges 
tion.  Their  teaching  is  not  direct  or  explicit,  but  lurk 
ing,  implicit,  masked  in  deep  incarnations.  To  teach 
formally  and  professedly,  is  to  abandon  the  very  dif 
ferential  character,  and  principle  of  poetry.  If  poetry 
V  could  condescend  to  teach  anything,  it  would  be  truths 
X^moral  or  religious.  But  even  these  it  can  utter  only 
V  through  symbols  and  actions.  The  great  moral,  for 
instance,  the  last  result  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  is  once 
formally  announced :  but  it  teaches  itself  only  by  dif 
fusing  its  lesson  through  the  entire  poem  in  the  total 
succession  of  events  and  purposes :  and  even  this  suc 
cession  teaches  it  only  when  the  whole  is  gathered  into 
unity  by  a  reflex  act  of  meditation  ;  just  as  the  pulsa 
tion  of  the  physical  heart  can  exist  only  when  all  the 
parts  in  an  animal  system  are  locked  into  one  organi 
zation. 

To  address  the  insulated  understanding  is  to  lay 
aside  the  Prosperous  robe  of  poetry.     The  objection, 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  193 

therefore,  to  didactic  poetry,  as  vulgarly  understood, 
would  be  fatal  even  if  there  were  none  but  this  logical 
objection  derived  from  its  definition.  To  be  in  self- 
contradiction  is,  for  any  idea  whatever,  sufficiently  to 
destroy  itself.  But  it  betrays  a  more  obvious  and  prac 
tical  contradiction  when  a  little  searched.  If  the  true 
purpose  of  a  man's  writing  a  didactic  poem  were  to 
teach,  by  what  suggestion  of  idiocy  should  he  choose 
to  begin  by  putting  on  fetters  ?  wherefore  should  the 
simple  man  volunteer  to  handcuff  and  manacle  him 
self,  were  it. only  by  the  encumbrances  of  metre,  and 
perhaps  of  rhyme  ?  But  these  he  will  find  the  very 
least  of  his  encumbrances.  A  far  greater  exists  in  the 
sheer  necessity  of  omitting  in  any  poem  a  vast  variety 
of  details,  and  even  capital  sections  of  the  subject, 
unless  they  will  bend  to  purposes  of  ornament.  Now 
this  collision  between  two  purposes,  the  purpose  of  use 
in  mere  teaching,  and  the  purpose  of  poetic  delight, 
shows,  by  the  uniformity  of  its  solution,  which  is  the 
true  purpose,  and  which  the  merely  ostensible  purpose. 
Had  the  true  purpose  been  instruction,  the  moment  that 
this  was  found  incompatible  with  a  poetic  treatment,  as 
soon  as  it  was  seen  that  the  sound  education  of  the 
reader-pupil  could  not  make  way  without  loitering  to 
gather  poetic  flowers,  the  stern  cry  of  4  duty '  would 
oblige  the  poet  to  remember  that  he  had  dedicated 
himself  to  a  didactic  mission,  and  that  he  differed  from 
other  poets,  as  a  monk  from  other  men,  by  his  vows  of 
self-surrender  to  harsh  ascetic  functions.  But,  on  the 
contrary,  in  the  very  teeth  of  this  rule,  wherever  such 
a  collision  does  really  take  place,  and  one  or  other  of 
the  supposed  objects  must  give  way,  it  is  always  the 
13 


194  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

vulgar  object  of  teaching  (the  pedagogue's  object) 
which  goes  to  the  rear,  whilst  the  higher  object  of 
poetic  emotion  moves  on  triumphantly.  In  reality  not 
one  didactic  poet  has  ever  yet  attempted  to  use  any 
parts  or  processes  of  the  particular  art  which  he  made 
his  theme,  unless  in  so  far  as  they  seemed  susceptible 
of  poetic  treatment,  and  only  because  they  seemed  so. 
Look  at  the  poem  of  Cyder,  by  Philips,  of  the  Fleece 
of  Dyer  or  (which  is  a  still  weightier  example)  at  the 
Georgics  of  Virgil,  —  does  any  of  these  poets  show 
the  least  anxiety  for  the  correctness  of  your  principles, 
or  the  delicacy  of  your  manipulations  in  the  worshipful 
arts  they  affect  to  teach  ?  No  ;  but  they  pursue  these 
arts  through  every  stage  that  offers  any  attractions  of 
beauty.  And  in  the  very  teeth  of  all  anxiety  for  teach 
ing,  if  there  existed  traditionally  any  very  absurd  way  of 
doing  a  thing  which  happened  to  be  eminently  pic 
turesque,  and,  if  opposed  to  this,  there  were  some  im 
proved  mode  that  had  recommended  itself  to  poetic 
hatred  by  being  dirty  and  ugly,  the  poet  (if  a  good 
one)  would  pretend  never  to  have  heard  of  this  dis 
agreeable  improvement.  Or  if  obliged,  by  some  rival 
poet,  not  absolutely  to  ignore  it,  he  would  allow  that 
such  a  thing  could  be  done,  but  hint  that  it  was  hateful 
to  the  Muses  or  Graces,  and  very  likely  to  breed  a 
pestilence. 

This  subordination  of  the  properly  didactic  function 
to  the  poetic,  which,  leaving  the  old  essential  distinc 
tion  of  poetry  [viz.  its  sympathy  with  the  genial 
motions  of  man's  heart]  to  override  all  accidents  of 
special  variation,  and  showing  that  the  essence  of 
poetry  never  can  be  set  aside  by  its  casual  modifica- 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  195 

tions,  —  will  be  compromised  by  some  loose  thinkers, 
under  the  idea  that  in  didactic  poetry  the  element  of 
instruction  is  in  fact  one  element,  though  subordinate 
and  secondary.  Not  at  all.  What  we  are  denying 
is,  that  the  element  of  instruction  enters  at  all  into 
didactic  poetry.  The  subject  of  the  Georgics,  for 
instance,  is  Rural  Economy  as  practised  by  Italian 
farmers  :  but  Virgil  not  only  omits  altogether  innumer 
able  points  of  instruction  insisted  on  as  articles  of  reli 
gious  necessity  by  Varro,  Cato,  Columella,  &c.,  but, 
even  as  to  those  instructions  which  he  does  communi 
cate,  he  is  careless  whether  they  are  made  technically 
intelligible  or  not.  He  takes  very  little  pains  to  keep 
you  from  capital  mistakes  in  practising  his  instruc 
tions  ;  but  he  takes  good  care  that  you  shall  not  miss 
any  strong  impression  for  the  eye  or  the  heart  to  which 
the  rural  process,  or  rural  scene,  may  naturally  lead. 
He  pretends  to  give  you  a  lecture  on  farming,  in  order 
to  have  an  excuse  for  carrying  you  all  round  the  beau 
tiful  farm.  He  pretends  to  show  you  a  good  plan  for 
a  farm-house,  as  the  readiest  means  of  veiling  his  im 
pertinence  in  showing  you  the  farmer's  wife  and  her 
rosy  children.  It  is  an  excellent  plea  for  getting  a 
peep  at  the  bonny  milk-maids  to  propose  an  inspection 
of  a  model  dairy.  You  pass  through  the  poultry-yard, 
under  whatever  pretence,  in  reality  to  see  the  peacock 
and  his  harem.  And  so  on  to  the  very  end,  the  pre 
tended  instruction  is  but  in  secret  the  connecting  tie 
which  holds  together  the  laughing  flowers  going  off 
from  it  to  the  right  and  to  the  left ;  whilst  if  ever  at 
intervals  this  prosy  thread  of  pure  didactics  is  brought 
forward  more  obtrusively,  it  is  so  by  way  of  foil,  to 


196  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

make  more  effective  upon  the  eye  the  prodigality  of 
the  floral  magnificence. 

We  affirm,  therefore,  that  the  didactic  poet  is  so  far 
from  seeking  even  a  secondary  or  remote  object  in  the 
particular  points  of  information  which  lie  may  happen 
to  communicate,  that  much  rather  he  would  prefer  the 
having  communicated  none  at  all.  We  will  explain 
ourselves  by  means  of  a  little  illustration  from  Pope, 
which  will  at  the  same  time  furnish  us  with  a  miniature 
type  of  what  we  ourselves  mean  by  a  didactic  poem, 
both  in  reference  to  what  it  is  and  to  what  it  is  not. 
In  the  Rape  of  the  Lock  there  is  a  game  at  cards 
played,  and  played  with  a  brilliancy  of  effect  and  feli 
city  of  selection,  applied  to  the  circumstances,  which 
make  it  a  sort  of  gem  within  a  gem.  This  game  was 
not  in  the  first  edition  of  the  poem,  but  was  an  after 
thought  of  Pope's,  labored  therefore  with  more  than 
usual  care.  We  regret  that  ombre,  the  game  described, 
is  no  longer  played,  so  that  the  entire  skill  with  which 
the  mimic  battle  is  fought  cannot  be  so  fully  appre 
ciated  as  in  Pope's  days.  The  strategics  have  partly 
perished,  which  really  Pope  ought  not  to  complain  of, 
since  he  surfers  only  as  Hannibal,  Marius,  Sertorius, 
suffered  before  him.  Enough,  however,  survives  of 
what  will  tell  its  own  story.  For  what  is  it,  let  us  ask, 
that  a  poet  has  to  do  in  such  a  case,  supposing  that  he 
were  disposed  to  weave  a  didactic  poem  out  of  a  pack 
of  cards,  as  Vida  has  out  of  the  chess-board  ?  In  de 
scribing  any  particular  game  he  does  not  seek  to  teach 
you  that  game  —  he  postulates  it  as  already  known  to 
you  —  but  he  relies  upon  separate  resources.  1st,  he 
will  revive  in  the  reader's  eye,  for  picturesque  effect, 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  197 

lie  vell-].nO\\n  personal  distinctions  of  the  several 
*s,  kna\e;-.,  &c.,  their  appearances  and  their  powers. 
'!,,'•  -  vill  choose  some  game  in  which  he  may  dis 
play-  a  happy  selection  applied  to  the  chances  and  turns 
of  fortune,  to  the  manoeuvres,  to  the  situations  of  doubt, 
of  brightening  expectation,  of  sudden  danger,  of  criti 
cal  deliverance,  or  of  final  defeat.  The  interest  of  a 
war  will  be  rehearsed  —  Us  est  de  paupere  regno  — 
that  is  true ;  but  the  depth  of  the  agitation  on  such 
occasions,  whether  at  chess,  at  draughts,  or  at  cards, 
ib  not  measured  of  necessity  by  the  grandeur  of  the 
stake  ;  he  selects,  in  short,  whatever  fascinates  the  eye 
or  agitates  the  heart  by  mimicry  of  life ;  but  so  far 
from  teaching,  he  presupposes  the  reader  already 
taught,  in  order  that  he  may  go  along  with  the  move 
ment  of  the  descriptions. 

Now,  in  treating  a  subject  so  vast,  indeed  so  inex 
haustible,  as  man,  this  eclecticism  ceases  to  be  pos 
sible.  Every  part  depends  upon  every  other  part : 
in  such  a  nexus  of  truths  to  insulate  is  to  annihilate. 
Severed  from  each  other  the  parts  lose  their  support, 
their  coherence,  their  very  meaning  ;  you  have  no 
liberty  to  reject  or  to  choose.  Besides,  in  treating  the 
ordinary  themes  proper  for  what  is  called  didactic 
poetry  —  say,  for  instance,  that  it  were  the  art  of 
rearing  silk-worms  or  bees  —  or  suppose  it  to  be  hor 
ticulture,  landscape-gardening,  hunting,  or  hawking, 
rarely  does  there  occur  anything  polemic  ;  or  if  a 
slight  controversy  does  arise,  it  is  easily  hushed  asleep 
—  it  is  stated  in  a  line,  it  is  answered  in  a  couplet. 
But  in  the  themes  of  Lucretius  and  Pope  everything  is 
polemic  —  you  move  only  through  dispute,  you  pros- 


198  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

per  only  by  argument  and  never-ending  controversy. 
There  is  not  positively  one  capital  proposition  or  doc 
trine  about  man,  about  his  origin,  his  nature,  his 
relations  to  God,  or  his  prospects,  but  must  be  fought 
for  with  energy,  watched  at  every  turn  with  vigilance, 
and  followed  into  endless  mazes,  not  under  the  choice 
of  the  writer,  but  under  the  inexorable  dictation  of  the 
argument. 

Such  a  poem,  so  unwieldy,  whilst  at  the  same  time 
so  austere  in  its  philosophy,  together  with  the  innumer 
able  polemic  parts  essential  to  its  good  faith  and  even 
to  its  evolution,  would  be  absolutely  unmanageable 
from  excess  and  from  disproportion,  since  often  a 
secondary  demur  would  occupy  far  more  space  than 
a  principled  section.  Here  lay  the  impracticable 
dilemma  for  Pope's  Essay  on  Man.  To  satisfy  the 
demands  of  the  subject,  was  to  defeat  the  objects  of 
poetry.  To  evade  the  demands  in  the  way  that  Pope 
has  done,  is  to  offer  us  a  ruin  for  a  palace.  The  vpry 
same  dilemma  existed  for  Lucretius,  and  with  the  very 
same  result.  The  De  Rerum  Naturd  (which  might, 
agreeably  to  its  theme,  have  been  entitled  De  Omnibus 
Rebus),  and  the  Essay  on  Man  (which  might  equally 
have  borne  the  Lucre tian  title  De  Rerum  Naturd),  are 
both,  and  from  the  same  cause,  fragments  that  could 
not  have  been  completed.  Both  are  accumulations  of 
diamond-dust  without  principles  of  coherency.  In  a 
succession  of  pictures,  such  as  usually  form  the  mate 
rials  of  didactic  poems,  the  slightest  thread  of  inter- 
dependency  is  sufficient.  But,  in  works  essentially 
and  everywhere  argumentative  and  polemic,  to  omit 
the  connecting  links,  as  often  as  they  arc  insusceptible 


ALEXANDER    POPE.  199 

of  poetic  effect,  is  to  break  up  the  unity  of  the  parts, 
and  to  undermine  the  foundations,  in  what  expressly 
offers  itself  as  a  systematic  and  architectural  whole. 
Pope's  poem  has  suffered  even  more  than  that  of 
Lucretius  from  this  want  of  cohesion.  It  is  indeed 
the  realization  of  anarchy ;  and  one  amusing  test  of 
this  may  be  found  in  the  fact,  that  different  commen 
tators  have  deduced  from  it  the  very  opposite  doc 
trines.  In  some  instances  this  apparent  antinomy  is 
doubtful,  and  dependent  on  the  ambiguities  or  obscu 
rities  of  the  expression.  But  in  others  it  is  /airly 
deducible  :  and  the  cause  lies  in  the  elliptical  structure 
of  the  work  :  the  ellipsis,  or  (as  sometimes  it  may  be 
called)  the  chasm,  may  be  filled  up  in  two  different 
modes  essentially  hostile :  and  he  that  supplies  the 
hiatus,  in  effect  determines  the  bias  of  the  poem  this 
way  or  that  —  to  a  religious  or  to  a  sceptical  result. 
In  this  edition  the  commentary  of  Warburton  has  been 
retained,  which  ought  certainly  to  have  been  dismissed. 
The  Essay  is,  in  effect,  a  Hebrew  word  with  the  vowel- 
points  omitted  :  and  Warburton  supplies  one  set  of 
vowels,  whilst  Crousaz  with  equal  right  supplies  a 
contradictory  set. 

As  a  whole,  the  edition  before  us  is  certainly  the 
most  agreeable  of  all  that  we  possess.  The  fidelity  of 
Mr.  Roscoe  to  the  interests  of  Pope's  reputation,  con 
trasts  pleasingly  with  the  harshness  at  times  of  Bowles, 
and  the  reckless  neutrality  of  Warton.  In  the  editor 
of  a  great  classic,  we  view  it  as  a  virtue,  wearing  the 
grace  of  loyalty,  that  he  should  refuse  to  expose 
frailties  or  defects  in  a  spirit  of  exultation.  Mr. 
Iloscoe's  own  notes  arc  written  with  a  peculiar  good 


200  ALEXANDER   POPE. 

sense,  temperance,  and  kind  feeling.  The  only  ob 
jection  to  them,  which  applies,  however,  still  more  to 
the  notes  of  the  former  editors,  is  the  want  of  com 
pactness.  They  are  not  written  under  that  austere 
instinct  of  compression  and  verbal  parsimony,  as  the 
ideal  merit  in  an  annotator,  which  ought  to  govern  all 
such  ministerial  labors  in  our  days.  Books  are  be 
coming  too  much  the  oppression  of  the  intellect,  and 
cannot  endure  any  longer  the  accumulation  of  undi 
gested  commentaries,  or  that  species  of  diffusion  in 
editors  which  roots  itself  in  laziness  :  the  efforts  of 
condensation  and  selection  are  painful  ;  and  they 
are  luxuriously  evaded  by  reprinting  indiscriminately 
whole  masses  of  notes  —  though  often  in  substance 
reiterating  each  other.  But  the  interests  of  readers 
clamorously  call  for  the  amendment  of  this  system. 
The  principle  of  selection  must  now  be  applied  even 
to  the  text  of  great  authors.  It  is  no  longer  advisable 
to  reprint  the  whole  of  either  Dryden  or  Pope.  Not 
that  we  would  wish  to  see  their  works  mutilated.  Let 
such  as  are  selected  be  printed  in  the  fullest  integrity 
of  the  text.  But  some  have  lost  their  interest ; 10 
others,  by  the  elevation  of  public  morals  since  the 
days  of  those  great  wits,  are  felt  to  be  now  utterly 
unfit  for  general  reading.  Equally  for  the  reader's 
sake  and  the  poet's,  the  time  has  arrived  when  they 
may  be  advantageously  retrenched  :  for  they  are  pain 
fully  at  war  with  those  feelings  of  entire  and  honorable 
esteem  with  which  all  lovers  of  exquisite  intellectual 
brilliancy  must  wish  to  surround  the  name  and  mem 
ory  of  POPE. 


NOTES. 


NOTE  1.    Page  148. 

Charles  I.,  for  example,  when  Prince  of  Wales,  and  many 
others  in  his  father's  court,  gained  their  known  familiarity 
with  Shakspeare  —  not  through  the  original  quartos,  so  slen 
derly  diffused,  nor  through  the  first  folio  of  1623,  but  through 
the  court  representations  of  his  chief  dramas  at  Whitehall. 

NOTE  2.     Page  154. 

The  Canterbury  Tales  were  not  made  public  until  1380  or 
thereabouts  :  but  the  composition  must  have  cost  thirty  or 
more  years ;  not  to  mention  that  the  work  had  probably  been 
finished  for  some  years  before  it  was  divulged. 

NOTE  3.    Page  156. 

The  reason  why  the  broad  distinctions  between  the  two 
literatures  of  power  and  knowledge  so  little  fix  the  attention, 
lies  in  the  fact,  that  a  vast  proportion  of  books  —  history, 
biography,  travels,  miscellaneous  essays,  &c.,  lying  in  a 
middle  zone,  confound  these  distinctions  by  interblending 
them.  AH  that  we  call  'amusement'  or  'entertainment,' 
is  a  diluted  form  of  the  power  belonging  to  passion,  and 
also  a  mixed  form ;  end  where  threads  of  direct  instruction 
intermingle  in  the  texture  with  these  threads  of  porter,  this 
absorption  of  the  duality  into  one  representative  nuance 


202  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

neutralizes  the  separate  perception  of  either.  Fused  into  a 
tertium  quid,  or  neutral  state,  they  disappear  to  the  popular 
eye  as  the  repelling  forces,  which  in  fact  they  are. 

NOTE  4.     Page  100. 

And  this  purity  of  diction  shows  itself  in.  many  points 
arguing  great  vigilance  of  attention,  and  also  great  anxiety 
for  using  the  language  powerfully  as  the  most  venerable  of 
traditions,  when  treating  the  most  venerable  of  subjects.  For 
instance,  the  Bible  never  condescends  to  the  mean  colloquial 
preterites  of  chid  for  did  chide,  or  writ  for  did  write,  but  always 
uses  the  full-dress  word  chode,  and  wrote.  Pope  might  have 
been  happier  had  he  read  his  Bible  more :  but  assuredly  he 
would  have  improved  his  English.  A  question  naturally 
arises  —  how  it  was  that  the  elder  writers  —  Shakspeare  in 
particular,  (who  had  seen  so  little  of  higher  society  when  he 
wrote  his  youthful  poems  of  Lucrece  and  Adonis,)  should 
have  maintained  so  much  purer  a  grammar  ?  Dr.  Johnson 
indeed,  but  most  falsely,  says  that  Shakspeare's  grammar 
is  licentious.  'The  style  of  Shakspeare'  (these  are  the 
exact  words  of  the  Doctor  in  his  preface)  '  was  in  itself 
ungrammatical,  perplexed,  and  obscure.'  An  audacious 
misrepresentation  !  In  the  doctor  himself,  a  legislator  for 
the  language,  we  undertake  to  show  more  numerically  of 
trespasses  against  grammar,  but  (which  is  worse  still)  more 
unscholarlike  trespasses.  Shakspeare  is  singularly  correct 
in  grammar.  One  reason,  we  believe,  was  this  :  from  the 
restoration  of  Charles  II.  decayed  the  ceremonious  exteriors 
of  society.  Stiffness  and  reserve  melted  away  before  the 
familiarity  and  impudence  of  French  manners.  Social  meet 
ings  grew  far  more  numerous  as  towns  expanded  ;  social 
pleasure  far  more  began  now  to  depend  upon  conversation  ; 
and  conversation,  growing  less  formal,  quickened  its  pace. 
Hence  came  the  call  for  rapid  abbreviations :  the  'tis  and 
'twas,  the  can't  and  don't  of  the  two  post-Miltonic  generations 
arose  under  this  impulse ;  and  the  general  impression  has 
ever  since  subsisted  amongst  English  writers  —  that  language, 
instead  of  being  an  exquisitely  beautiful  vehicle  for  the 


NOTES. 

thoughts  —  a  robe  that  never  can  be  adorned  with  too  much 
care  or  piety  —  is  in  tact  a  dirty  high-road  which  all  people 
detest  whilst  all  are  forced  to  use  it,  and  to  the  keeping  of 
which  in  repair  no  rational  man  ever  contributes  a  trifle  that 
is  not  forced  from  him  by  some  severity  of  Quarter  Sessions. 
The  great  corrupter  of  English  was  the  conversational  instinct 
for  rapidity.  A  more  honorable  source  of  corruption  lay  in 
the  growth  of  new  ideas,  and  the  continual  influx  of  foreign 
words  to  meet  them.  Spanish  words  arose,  like  reformado, 
prixado,  desperado,  and  French  ones  past  counting.  But  as 
these  retained  their  foreign  forms  of  structure,  they  reacted  to 
vitiate  the  language  still  more  by  introducing  a  piebald  aspect 
of  books  which  it  seemed  a  matter  of  necessity  to  tolerate  for 
the  interests  of  wider  thinking.  The  perfection  of  this  horror 
was  never  attained  except  amongst  the  Germans. 

NOTE  5.    Page  168. 

It  was  after  his  connection  with  Warburton  that  Pope  intro 
duced  several  of  his  living  portraits  into  the  Satires. 

NOTE  G.    Page  172. 

By  what  might  seem  a  strange  oversight,  but  which  in  fact 
is  a  very  natural  oversight  to  one  who  was  not  uttering  one 
word- in  which  he  seriously  believed,  Pope,  in  a  prose  note  on 
verse  2U7,  roundly  asserts  '  that  the  particular  characters  of 
women  are  more  various  than  those  of  men.'  It  is  no  evasion 
of  this  insufferable  contradiction,  that  he  couples  with  the 
greater  variety  of  characters  in  women  a  greater  uniformity  in 
what  he  presumes  to  be  their  ruling  passion.  Even  as  to  this 
ruling  passion  he  cannot  agree  with  himself  for  ten  minutes ; 
generally  he  says,  that  it  is  the  love  of  pleasure ;  but  some 
times  (as  at  verse  208)  forgetting  this  monotony,  he  ascribes 
to  women  a  dualism  of  passions  —  love  of  pleasure  and  love 
of  power  —  which  dualism  of  itself  must  be  a  source  of  self- 
conilict,  and  therefore  of  inexhaustible  variety  in  character  : 

1  Those  only  fix'd,  they  first  or  last  obey  — 
The  love  of  pleasure  and  the  love  of  sway.' 


204  ALEXANDER    POPE. 

NOTE  7.     Page  175. 

This  refers  to  the  Act  of  Parliament  for  burying  corpses  in 
woollen,  which  greatly  disturbed  the  fashionable  costume  in 
coffins  comme  il  faut . 

NOTE  7.     Page  177. 

The  sons  of  the  Duke  having  died,  the  title  and  estates  were 
so  settled  as  to  descend  through  this  daughter,  who  married 
the  Earl  of  Sunderland.  In  consequence  of  this  arrangement, 
Spenser  (until  lately)  displaced  the  great  name  of  Churchill  ; 
and  the  Earl  became  that  second  Duke  of  Marlborough,  about 
whom  Smollett  tells  us  in  his  History  of  England  (Reign  of 
George  II.)  so  remarkable  and  to  this  hour  so  mysterious  a 
story. 

NOTE  8.     Page  177. 

The  Duchess  died  in  the  same  year  as  Pope,  viz.  just  in 
time  by  a  few  months  to  miss  the  Rebellion  of  1745,  and  the 
second  Pretender ;  spectacles  which  for  little  reasons  (vindic 
tive  or  otherwise)  both  of  them  would  have  enjoyed  until  the 
spring  of  1746. 

NOTE  9.    Page  186. 

The  Vestals  not  only  renounced  marriage,  at  least  for  those 
years  in  which  marriage  could  be  a  natural  blessing,  but  also 
left  their  fathers'  houses  at  an  age  the  most  trying  to  the 
human  heart  as  regards  the  pangs  of  separation. 

NOTE  10.    Page  200. 

"We  do  not  include  the  DUNCIAD  in  this  list.  On  the  contrary, 
the  arguments  by  which  it  has  been  generally  undervalued,  as 
though  antiquated  by  lapse  of  time  and  by  the  fading  of 
names,  are  all  unsound.  We  ourselves  hold  it  to  be  the 
greatest  of  Pope's  efforts.  But  for  that  very  reason  we  retire 
from  the  examination  of  it,  which  we  had  designed,  as  being 
wholly  disproportioned  to  the  narrow  limits  remaining  to  us. 


WILLIAM    GODWIN.* 


IT  is  no  duty  of  a  notice  so  cursory,  to  discuss  Mr. 
Godwin  as  a  philosopher.  Mr.  Gilfillan  admits,  that 
in  this  character  he  did  not  earn  much  popularity  by 
any  absolute  originality  ;  and  of  such  popularity  as 
he  may  have  snatched  surreptitiously  without  it, 
clearly  all  must  have  long  since  exhaled  before  it 
could  be  possible  for  '  a  respectable  person  '  to  de 
mand  of  Mr.  Gilfillan  'Who's  Godwin?'  A  ques 
tion  which  Mr.  Gilfillan  justly  thinks  it  possible  that 
4  some  readers,'  of  the  present  day,  November,  1845, 
may  repeat.  That  is,  we  must  presume,  not  who  is 
Godwin  the  novelist  ?  but  who  is  Godwin  the  political 
philosopher  ?  In  that  character  he  is  now  forgotten. 
And  yet  in  that  he. carried  one  single  shock  into  the 
bosom  of  English  society,  fearful  but  momentary,  like 
that  from  the  electric  blow  of  the  gymnotus ;  or,  per 
haps,  the  intensity  of  the  brief  panic  which,  fifty  years 
ago,  he  impressed  on  the  public  mind,  may  be  more 
adequately  expressed  by  the  case  of  a  ship  in  the 
middle  ocean  suddenly  scraping,  with  her  keel,  a  rag- 

*  'A  Gallery  of  Literary  Portraits.'     By  George  Gilfillan. 


206  WILLIAM    GODWIN. 

ged  rock,  hanging  for  one  moment,  as  if  impaled  upon 
the  teeth  of  the  dreadful  sierra,  then,  by  the  mere 
impetus  of  her  mighty  sails,  grinding  audibly,  to 
powder,  the  fangs  of  this  accursed  submarine  harrow, 
leaping  into  deep  water  again,  and  causing  the  panic 
of  ruin  to  be  simultaneous  with  the  deep  sense  of  de 
liverance.  In  the  quarto  (that  is,  the  original)  edition 
of  his  *  Political  Justice,'  Mr.  Godwin  advanced  against 
thrones  and  dominations,  powers  and  principalities, 
with  the  air  of  some  Titan  slinger  or  monarchist 
from  Thebes  and  Troy,  saying,  —  'Come  hither,  ye 
wretches,  that  I  may  give  your  flesh  to  the  fowls  of 
the  air.'  But,  in  the  second,  or  octavo  edition,  —  and 
under  what  motive  has  never  been  explained,  —  he 
recoiled,  absolutely,  from  the  sound  himself  had  made: 
everybody  else  was  appalled  by  the  fury  of  the  chal 
lenge  ;  and,  through  the  strangest  of  accidents,  Mr. 
Godwin  also  was  appalled.  The  second  edition,  as 
regards  principles,  is  not  a  recast,  but  absolutely  a  tra 
vesty  of  the  first:  nay,  it  is  all  but  a  palinode.  In  this 
collapse  of  a  tense  excitement,  I  myself  find  the  true 
reason  for  the  utter  extinction  of  the  '  Political  Jus 
tice,'  and  of  its  author  considered  as  a  philosopher. 
Subsequently,  he  came  forward  as  a  philosophical 
speculator,  in  4  The  Enquirer,'  and  elsewhere ;  but 
here  it  was  always  some  minor  question  which  he 
raised,  or  some  mixed  question,  rather  allied  to  philos 
ophy  than  philosophical.  As  regarded  the  main  cre 
ative  nisus  of  his  philosophy,  it  remained  undeniable 
that,  in  relation  to  the  hostility  of  the  world,  he  was 
like  one  who,  in  some  piratical  ship,  should  drop  his 
anchor  before  Portsmouth,  —  should  defy  the  navies  of 


WILLIAM    GODWIN.  207 

England  to  come  out  and  fight,  and  then,  whilst  a 
thousand  vessels  were  contending  for  the  preference 
in  blowing  him  out  of  the  seas,  should  suddenly  slip 
his  cables  and  run. 

But  it  is  as  a  novelist,  not  as  a  political  theorist,  that 
Mr.  Gil fillan  values  Godwin  ;  and  specially  for  his  novel 
of  'Caleb  Williams.'  Now,  if  this  were  the  eccentric 
judgment  of  one  unsupported  man,  however  able,  and 
had  received  no  countenance  at  all  from  others,  it 
might  be  injudicious  to  detain  the  reader  upon  it.  It 
happens,  however,  that  other  men  of  talent  have  raised 
4  Caleb  Williams  '  to  a  station  in  the  first  rank  of  nov 
els  :  whilst  many  more,  amongst  whom  I  am  compel 
led  to  class  myself,  can  see  in  it  no  merit  of  any  kind. 
A  schism,  which  is  really  perplexing,  exists  in  this 
particular  case  ;  and,  that  the  reader  may  judge  for 
himself,  I  will  state  the  outline  of  the  plot,  out  of  which 
it  is  that  the  whole  interest  must  be  supposed  to  grow  ; 
for  the  characters  arc  nothing,  being  mere  generalities, 
and  very  slightly  developed.  Thirty-five  years  it  is 
since  1  read  the  book ;  but  the  nakedness  of  the  incidents 
makes  them  easily  rememberable.  —  Falklapd,  who 
passes  for  a  man  of  high-minded  and  delicate  honor, 
but  is,  in  fact,  distinguished  only  by  acute  sensibil 
ity  to  the  opinion  of  the  world,  receives  a  dreadful 
insult  in  a  most  public  situation.  It  is,  indeed,  more 
than  an  insult,  being  the  most  brutal  of  outrages.  In 
a  ball-room,  where  the  local  gentry  and  his  neighbors 
are  assembled,  he  is  knocked  down,  kicked,  dragged 
nlong  the  floor,  by  a  ruffian  squire,  named  Tyrrel.  It 
is  vain  to  resist;  he  himself  is  slightly  built,  and  his 
antagonist  is  a  powerful  man.  In  these  circumstances, 


208  WILLIAM    GODWIN. 

and  under  the  eyes  of  all  the   ladies  in  the  county 
witnessing  every  step  of  his  humiliation,  no  man  could 
severely  have  blamed  him,  nor  would  our  English  law 
have  severely  punished  him,  if,  in  the  frenzy  of  his 
agitation,  he  had  seized  a  poker  and  laid  his  assailant 
dead  upon  the  spot.     Such  allowance  does  the  natural 
feeling  of  men,  such  allowance  does  the  sternness  of 
the  judgment-seat  make   for   human   infirmity  when 
tried  to  extremity  by  devilish  provocation.     But  Falk 
land  does  not  avenge  himself  thus  :  he  goes  out,  makes 
his  little  arrangements,  and,  at  a  later  hour  of  the 
night,  he  comes,  by  surprise,  upon  Tyrrel,  and  mur 
ders  him  in  the  darkness.     Here  is  the  first  vice  in  the 
story.     With  any  gleam  of  generosity  in  his  nature, 
no  man  in  pursuit  of  vengeance  would  have  found  it 
in  such  a  catastrophe.     That  an  enemy  should  die  by 
apoplexy,  or  by  lightning,  would   be  no  gratification 
of  wrath   to  an  impassioned  pursuer  :    to   make  it  a 
retribution  for  7m/i,  he  himself  must  be  associated  to 
the   catastrophe    in  the    consciousness  of  his  victim. 
Falkland   for  some  time  evades  or  tramples  on  detec 
tion.     But  his  evil  genius  at  last  appears  in  the  shape 
of  Caleb  Williams  ;   and  the   agency  through  which 
Mr.  Caleb  accomplishes  his  mission  is  not  that  of  any 
grand  passion,  but  of  vile  eavesdropping  inquisitive- 
ness.     Mr.  Falkland  had  hired  him  as  an  amanuensis ; 
and  in  that  character  Caleb  had  occasion  to  observe 
that   some    painful   remembrance    weighed    upon    his 
masters  mind;  and  that  something  or  other  —  docu 
ments  or  personal  memorials  connected  with  this  re 
membrance  —  were  deposited   in   a  trunk   visited  at 
intervals  by  Falkland.     But  of  what  nature  could  these 


WILLIAM    GODWIN.  209 

memorials  be  ?  Surely  Mr.  Falkland  would  not  keep 
in  brandy  the  .  gory  head  of  Tyrrel  ;  and  anything 
short  of  that  could  not  proclaim  any  murder  at  all, 
much  less  the  particular  murder.  Strictly  speaking, 
nothing  could  be  in  the  trunk,  of  a  nature  to  connect 
Falkland  with  the  murder  more  closely  than  the  cir 
cumstances  had  already  connected  him  ;  and  those 
circumstances,  as  we  know,  had  been  insufficient.  It 
puzzles  one,  therefore,  to  imagine  any  evidence  which 
the  trunk  could  yield,  unless  there  were  secreted  within 
it  some  known  personal  property  of  TyrrePs;  in  which 
case  the  aspiring  Falkland  had  committed  a  larceny 
as  well  as  a  murder.  Caleb,  meantime,  wastes  no 
labor  in  hypothetic  reasonings,  but  resolves  to  have 
ocular  satisfaction  in  the  matter.  An  opportunity 
offers :  an  alarm  of  fire  is  given  in  the  day-time  ;  and 
whilst  Mr.  Falkland,  with  his  people,  is  employed  on 
the  lawn  manning  the  buckets,  Caleb  skulks  off  to  the 
trunk  ;  feeling,  probably,  that  his  first  duty  was  to 
himself,  by  extinguishing  the  burning  fire  of  curiosity 
in  his  own  heart,  after  which  there  might  be  time 
enough  for  his  second  duty,  of  assisting  to  extinguish 
the  fire  in  his  master's  mansion.  Falkland,  however, 
misses  the  absentee.  To  pursue  him,  to  collar  him, 
and,  we  may  hope,  to  kick  him,  are  the  work  of  a 
moment.  Had  Caleb  found  time  for  accomplishing 
his  inquest  ?  I  really  forget  ;  but  no  matter  :  either 
now,  or  at  some  luckier  hour,  he  does  so  :  he  becomes 
master  of  Falkland's  secret ;  consequently,  as  both 
fancy,  of  Falkland's  life.  At  this  point  commences  a 
flight  of  Caleb,  and  a  chasing  of  Falkland,  in  order  to 
watch  his  motions,  which  forms  the  most  spirited  part 
14 


210  WILLIAM    GODWIN. 

of  the  story.  Mr.  Godwin  tells  us  that  he  derived  this 
situation,  the  continual  flight  and  continual  pursuit, 
from  a  South  American  tradition  of  some  Spanish 
vengeance.  Always  the  Spaniard  was  riding  in  to 
any  given  town  on  the  road,  when  his  destined  victim 
was  riding  out  at  the  other  end  ;  so  that  the  relations 
of  '  whereabouts'  were  never  for  a  moment  lost :  the 
trail  was  perfect.  Now,  this  might  be  possible  in  cer 
tain  countries  ;  but  in  England  !  —  heavens  !  could 
not  Caleb  double  upon  his  master,  or  dodge  round  a 
gate  (like  Falkland  when  he  murdered  Mr.  Tyrrel),  or 
take  a  headlong  plunge  into  London,  where  the  scent 
might  have  lain  cold  for  forty  years  ?  *  Other  acci 
dents  by  thousands  would  interrupt  the  chase.  On  the 
hundredth  day,  for  instance,  after  the  flying  parties 
had  become  well  known  on  the  road,  Mr.  Falkland 
would  drive  furiously  up  to  some  King's  Head  or 
White  Lion,  putting  his  one  question  to  the  waiter, 
*  Where 's  Caleb  ?  '  And  the  waiter  would  reply, 
4  Where's  Mr.  Caleb,  did  you  say,  Sir?  Why,  he 
went  off  at  five  by  the  Highflyer,  booked  inside  the 
whole  way  to  Doncaster ;  and  Mr.  Caleb  is  now,  Sir, 
precisely  forty-five  miles  a-head.'  Then  would  Falk 
land  furiously  demand  '  four  horses  on ; '  and  then 
would  the  waiter  plead  a  contested  election  in  excuse 
for  having  no  horses  at  all.  Really,  for  dramatic 

*  '  Forty  years  : '  so  long,  according  to  my  recollection  of 
Boswell,  did  Dr.  Johnson  walk  about  London  before  he  met  an 
old  Derbyshire  friend,  who  also  had  been  walking  about  Lon 
don  with  the  same  punctual  regularity  for  every  day  of  the 
same  forty  years.  The  nodes  of  intersection  did  not  come 
round  sooner. 


WILLIAM    GODWIN.  211 

effect,  it  is  a  pity  that  the  tale  were  not  translated  for 
ward  to  the  days  of  railroads.  Sublime  would  look 
the  fiery  pursuit,  and  the  panic-stricken  flight,  when 
racing  from  Flcctwood  to  Liverpool,  to  Birmingham, 
to  London ;  then  smoking  along  the  Great  Western, 
where  Mr.  Caleb's  forty-five  miles  a-head  would  avail 
him  little,  to  Bristol,  to  Exeter;  thence  doubling  back 
upon  London,  like  the  steam  leg  in  Mr.  H.  G.  Bell's 
admirable  story. 

But,  after  all,  what  was  the  object,  and  what  the 
result  of  all  this  racing  ?  Once  I  saw  two  young  men 
facing  each  other  upon  a  high  road,  but  at  a  furlong's 
distance,  and  playing  upon  the  foolish  terrors  of  a 
young  woman,  by  continually  heading  her  back  from 
one  to  the  other,  as  alternately  she  approached  towards 
either.  Signals  of  some  dreadful  danger  in  the  north 
being  made  by  the  northern  man,  back  the  poor  girl 
flew  towards  the  southern,  who,  in  his  turn,  threw  oat 
pantomimic  warnings  of  an  equal  danger  to  the  south. 
And  thus,  like  a  tennis-ball,  the  simple  creature  kept 
rebounding  from  one  to  the  other,  until  she  could  move 
no  farther  through  sheer  fatigue  ;  and  then  first  the 
question  occurred  to  her,  What  was  it  that  she  had 
been  running  from  ?  The  same  question  seems  to 
have  struck  at  last  upon  the  obtuse  mind  of  Mr.  Caleb  ; 
it  was  quite  as  easy  to  play  the  part  of  hunter,  as  that 
of  hunted  game,  and  likely  to  be  cheaper.  He  turns 
therefore  sharp  round  upon  his  master,  who  in  his  turn 
is  disposed  to  fly,  when  suddenly  the  sport  is  brought 
to  a  dead  lock  by  a  constable,  who  tells  the  murdering 
squire  that  he  is  c  wanted.'  Caleb  has  lodged  informa 
tions  ;  all  parties  meet  for  a  final  i  reunion '  before  the 


212  WILLIAM    GODWIN. 

magistrate  ;  Mr.  Falkland,  oddly  enough,  regards  him 
self  in  the  light  of  an  ill-used  man  ;  which  theory  of 
the  case,  even  more  oddly,  seems  to  be  adopted  by 
Mr.  Gilfillan  ;  but,  for  all  that  he  can  say,  Mr.  Falk 
land  is  fully  committed  :  and  as  laws  were  made  for 
every  degree,  it  is  plain  that  Mr.  Falkland  (however 
much  of  a  pattern-man)  is  in  some  danger  of  swing 
ing.  But  this  catastrophe  is  intercepted  :  a  novelist 
may  raise  his  hero  to  the  peerage  ;  he  may  even  con 
fer  the  garter  upon  him  ;  but  it  shocks  against  usage 
and  courtesy  that  he  should  hang  him.  The  circu 
lating  libraries  would  rise  in  mutiny,  if  he  did.  And 
therefore  it  is  satisfactory  to  believe,  (for  all  along  I 
speak  from  memory,)  that  Mr.  Falkland  reprieves  him 
self  from  the  gallows  by  dying  of  exhaustion  from  his 
travels. 

Such  is  the  fable  of  '  Caleb  Williams,'  upon  which 
by  the  way  is  built,  I  think,  Colman's  drama  of  '  The 
Iron  Chest.'  I  have  thought  it  worth  the  trouble 
(whether  for  the  reader,  or  for  myself,)  of  a  Hying 
abstract ;  and  chiefly  with  a  view  to  the  strange  col 
lision  of  opinions  as  to  the  merit  of  the  work  ;  some, 
as  I  have  said,  exalting  it  to  the  highest  class  of  novels, 
others  depressing  it  below  the  lowest  of  those  which 
achieve  any  notoriety.  They  who  vote  against  it  are 
in  a  large  majority.  The  Germans,  whose  literature 
offers  a  free  port  to  all  the  eccentricities  of  the  earth, 
have  never  welcomed  '  Caleb  Williams.'  Chenier,  the 
ruling  litterateur  of  Paris,  in  the  days  of  Napoleon, 
when  reviewing  the  literature  of  his  own  day,  dis 
misses  Caleb  contemptuously  as  coarse  and  vulgar. 
It  is  not  therefore  to  the  German  taste,  it  is  not  to  the 


WILLIAM    GODWIN.  213 

French.  And  as  to  our  own  country,  Mr.  Gilfillan  is 
undoubtedly  wrong  in  supposing  that  it  *  is  in  every 
circulating  library,  and  needs  more  frequently,  than 
almost  any  novel,  to  be  replaced.'  If  this  were  so,  in 
presence  of  the  immortal  novels  which  for  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  have  been  gathering  into  the 
garners  of  our  English  literature,  I  should  look  next 
to  see  the  race  of  men  returning  from  venison  and 
wheat  to  their  primitive  diet  of  acorns.  But  I  believe 
that  the  number  of  editions  yet  published,  would  at 
once  discredit  this  account  of  the  book's  popularity. 
Neither  is  it  likely,  a  priori,  that  such  a  popularity 
could  arise  even  for  a  moment.  The  interest  from 
secret  and  vindictive  murder,  though  coarse,  is  un 
doubtedly  deep.  What  would  make  us  thrill  in  real 
life,  the  case  for  instance  of  a  neighbor  lying  under 
the  suspicion  of  such  a  murder,  would  make  us  thrill 
in  a  novel.  But  then  it  must  be  managed  with  art, 
and  covered  with  mystery.  For  a  long  time  it  must 
continue  doubtful,  both  as  to  the  fact,  and  the  circum 
stances,  and  the  motive.  Whereas,  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Falkland,  there  is  little  mystery  of  any  kind ;  not 
much,  and  only  for  a  short  time,  to  Caleb ;  and  none 
at  all  to  the  reader,  who  could  have  relieved  the.curi- 
osity  of  Mr.  Caleb  from  the  first,  if  he  were  placed  in 
communication  with  him. 

Differing  so  much  from  Mr.  Gilfillan,  as  to  the 
effectiveness  of  the  novel,  I  am  only  the  more  im 
pressed  with  the  eloquent  images  and  expressions  by 
which  he  has  conveyed  his  own  sense  of  its  power. 
Power  there  must  be,  though  many  of  us  cannot 
discern  it,  to  react  upon  us,  through  impressions  so 


214  WILLIAM    GODWIN. 

powerful  in  other  minds.  Some  of  Mr.  Gilfillan's  im 
pressions,  as  they  are  clothed  in  striking  images  by 
himself,  I  will  here  quote  :  —  '  His,'  Godwin's,  '  heat  is 
never  that  of  the  sun  with  all  his  beams  around  him ; 
but  of  the  round  rayless  orb  seen  shining  from  the 
summit  of  Mont  Blanc,  still  and  stripped  in  the  black 
ether.  He  has  more  passion  than  imagination.  And 
even  his  passion  he  has  learned  more  by  sympathy 
than  by  personal  feeling.  And  amid  his  most  tem 
pestuous  scenes,  you  see  the  calm  and  stern  eye  of 
philosophic  analysis  looking  on.  His  imagery  is  not 
copious,  nor  always  original ;  but  its  sparseness  is  its 
strength,  the  flash  comes  sudden  as  the  lightning.  No 
preparatory  flourish,  or  preliminary  sound  :  no  sheets 
of  useless  splendor :  each  figure  is  a  fork  of  fire, 
which  strikes  and  needs  no  second  blow.  Nay,  often 
his  images  are  singularly  common-place,  and  you 
wonder  how  they  move  you  so,  till  you  resolve  this 
into  the  power  of  the  hand  which  jaculates  its  own 
energy  in  them.3  And  again,  '  His  novels  resemble 
the  paintings  of  John  Martin,  being  a  gallery,  nay  a 
world,  in  themselves.  In  both,  monotony  and  man 
nerism  are  incessant:  but  the  monotony  is  that  of  the 
sounding  deep,  the  mannerism  that  of  the  thunderbolts 
of  heaven.  Martin  might  append  to  his  one  continual 
flash  of  lightning,  which  is  present  in  all  his  pictures  — 
now  to  reveal  a  deluge,  now  to  garland  the  brow  of  a 
fiend  —  now  to  rend  the  veil  of  a  temple,  and  now  to 
guide  the  invaders  through  the  breach  of  a  city  —  the 
words,  John  Martin,  his  mark.  Godwin's  novels  are 
not  less  terribly  distinguished  to  those  who  understand 


WILLIAM   GODWIN.  215 

their  cipher  —  the  deep  scar  of  misery  branded  upon 
the  brow  of  the  l  victim  of  society.' 

And  as  to  the  earliest  of  these  novels,  the  '  Caleb 
Williams,'  he  says,  '  There  is  about  it  a  stronger 
suction  and  swell  of  interest  than  in  any  novel  we 
know,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  of  Sir 
Walter's.  You  are  in  it  ere  you  are  aware.  You 
put  your  hand  playfully  into  a  child's,  and  are  sur 
prised  to  find  it  held  in  the  grasp  of  a  giant.  It 
becomes  a  fascination.  Struggle  you  may,  and  kick, 
but  he  holds  you  by  his  glittering  eye.'  In  reference, 
again,  to  4  St.  Leon,'  the  next  most  popular  of  God 
win's  novels,  there  is  a  splendid  passage  upon  the 
glory  and  pretensions  of  the  ancient  alchemist,  in  the 
infancy  of  scientific  chemistry.  It  rescues  the  char 
acter  from  vulgarity,  and  displays  it  idealized  as 
sometimes,  perhaps,  it  must  have  been.  I  am  sorry 
that  it  is  too  long  for  extracting;  but,  in  compensation 
to  the  reader,  I  quote  two  very  picturesque  sentences, 
describing  what,  to  Mr.  Gilfillan,  appears  the  quality 
of  Godwin's  style :  — '  It  is  a  smooth  succession  of  short 
and  simple  sentences,  each  clear  as  crystal,  and  none 
ever  distracting  the  attention  from  the  subject  to  its 
own  construction.  It  is  a  style  in  which  you  cannot 
explain  how  the  total  effect  rises  out  of  the  individual 
parts,  and  which  is  forgotten  as  entirely  during  perusal 
as  is  the  pane  of  glass  through  which  you  gaze  at  a 
comet  or  a  star.'  Elsewhere,  and  limiting  his  remark 
to  the  style  of  the  '  Caleb  Williams,'  he  says  finely :  — 
'The  writing,  though  far  from  elegant  or  finished,  has 
in  parts  the  rude  power  of  those  sentences  which 


216  WILLIAM    GODWIN. 

criminals,   martyrs,   and    maniacs,   scrawl   upon   their 
walls  or  windows  in  the  eloquence  of  desperation.'  * 

These  things  perplex  me.  The  possibility  that  any 
individual  in  the  minority  can  have  regarded  Godwin 
with  such  an  eye,  seems  to  argue  that  we  of  the 
majority  must  be  wrong.  Deep  impressions  seem  to 
justify  themselves.  We  may  have  failed  to  perceive 
things  which  are  in  the  object ;  but  it  is  not  so  easy 
for  others  to  perceive  things  which  are  not ;  or,  at 
least,  hardly  in  a  case  like  this,  where  (though  a 
minority)  these  '  others  '  still  exist  in  number  sufficient 
to  check  and  to  confirm  each  other.  On  the  other 
hand,  Godwin's  name  seems  sinking  out  of  remem 
brance  ;  and  he  is  remembered  less  by  the  novels  that 
succeeded,  or  by  the  philosophy  that  he  abjured,  than 
as  the  man  that  had  Mary  Wolstonecraft  for  his  wife, 
Mrs.  Shelley  for  his  daughter,  and  the  immortal  Shelley 
as  his  son-in-law. 


*  '  Desperation.'  Yet,  as  martyrs  are  concerned  in  the 
picture,  it  ought  to  have  been  said,  '  of  desperation  and  of 
farewell  to  earth,'  or  something  equivalent. 


JOHN   FOSTER. 


MR.  GILFILLAN  *  possibly  overrates  the  power  of  this 
essayist,  and  the  hold  which  he  has  upon  the  public 
mind.  It  is  singular,  meantime,  that  whatever  might 
be  its  degree,  much  or  little,  originally  his  influence 
was  due  to  an  accident  of  position  which  in  some 
countries  would  have  tended  to  destroy  it.  He  was  a 
Dissenter.  Now,  in  England,  that  sometimes  operates 
as  an  advantage.  To  dissent  from  the  established 
form  of  religion,  which  could  not  affect  the  value  of  a 
writer's  speculations,  may  easily  become  the  means 
of  diffusing  their  reputation,  as  well  as  of  facilitating 
their  introduction.  And  in  the  following  way  :  The 
great  mass  of  the  reading  population  are  absolutely  in 
different  to  such  deflexions  from  the  national  standard. 
The  man,  suppose,  is  a  Baptist :  but  to  be  a  Baptist  is 
still  to  be  a  Protestant,  and  a  Protestant  agreeing  with 
his  countrymen  in  every  thing  essential  to  purity  of 
life  and  faith.  So  far  there  is  the  most  entire  neutrality 
in  the  public  mind,  and  readiness  to  receive  any  im 
pression  which  the  man's  powers  enable  him  to  make. 


*  '  Gallery  of  Literary  Portraits.' 


218 


JOHN    FOSTER. 


There  is,  indeed,  so  absolute  a  carelessness  for  all 
inoperative  shades  of  religious  difference  lurking  in 
the  background,  that  even  the  ostentatiously  liberal 
hardly  feel  it  a  case  for  parading  their  liberality.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  his  own  sectarian  party  are  as 
energetic  to  push  him  forward  as  all  others  are  passive. 
They  favor  him  as  a  brother,  and  also  as  one  whose 
credit  will  react  upon  their  common  sect.  And  this 
favor,  pressing  like  a  wedge  upon  the  unresisting 
neutrality  of  the  public,  soon  succeeds  in  gaining  for 
any  able  writer  among  sectarians  an  exaggerated  repu 
tation.  Nobody  is  against  him  ;  and  a  small  section 
acts  for  him  in  a  spirit  of  resolute  partisanship. 

To  this  accident  of  social  position,  and  to  his  con 
nection  with  the  Eclectic  Review,  Mr.  Foster  owed 
his  first  advantageous  presentation  before  the  public. 
The  misfortune  of  many  an  able  writer  is,  not  that  he 
is  rejected  by  the  world,  but  that  virtually  he  is  never 
brought  conspicuously  before  them :  he  is  not  dis 
missed  unfavorably,  but  he  is  never  effectually  intro 
duced.  From  this  calamity  at  the  outset,  Foster  was 
saved  by  his  party.  I  happened  myself  to  be  in 
Bristol  at  the  moment  when  his  four  essays  were  first 
issuing  from  the  press ;  and  everywhere  I  heard  so 
pointed  an  account  of  the  expectations  connected  with 
Foster  by  his  religious  party,  that  I  made  it  a  duty  to 
read  his  book  without  delay.  It  is  a  distant  incident 
to  look  back  upon  ;  gone  by  for  more  than  thirty 
years ;  but  I  remember  my  first  impressions,  which 
were  these  :  —  first,  That  the  novelty  or  weight  of  the 
thinking  was  hardly  sufficient  to  account  for  the  sudden 
popularity,  without  some  extra  influence  at  work  ;  and, 


JOHN    FOSTER.  219 

secondly,  That  the  contrast  was  remarkable  between 
the  uncolored  style  of  his  general  diction,  and  the 
brilliant  felicity  of  occasional  images  embroidered 
upon  the  sober  ground  of  his  text.  The  splendor  did 
not  seem  spontaneous,  or  growing  up  as  part  of  tho 
texture  within  the  loom  ;  it  was  intermitting,  and 
seemed  as  extraneous  to  the  substance  as  the  flowers 
which  are  chalked  for  an  evening  upon  the  floors  of 
ball-rooms. 

Subsequently,  I  remarked  two  other  features  of 
difference  in  his  manner,  neither  of  which  has  been 
overlooked  by  Mr.  Gilfillan,  viz.  first,  The  unsocial 
gloom  of  his  eye,  travelling  over  all  things  with 
dissatisfaction;  second,  (Which  in  our  days  seemed 
unaccountable,)  the  remarkable  limitation  of  his  know 
ledge.  You  might  suppose  the  man,  equally  by  his 
ignorance  of  passing  things  and  by  his  ungenial 
moroseness,  to  be  a  specimen  newly  turned  out  from 
the  silent  cloisters  of  La  Trappe.  A  monk  he  seemed 
by  the  repulsion  of  his  cloistral  feelings,  and  a  monk 
by  the  superannuation  of  his  knowledge.  Both  pecu 
liarities  he  drew  in  part  from  that  same  sectarian 
position,  operating  for  evil,  to  which,  in  another 
direction  as  a  conspicuous  advantage,  he  had  been 
indebted  for  his  favorable  public  introduction.  It  is 
not  that  Foster  was  generally  misanthropic ;  neither 
was  he,  as  a  sectarian,  'a  good  hater3  at  any  special 
angle;  that  is,  he  was  not  a  zealous  hater;  but,  by 
temperament,  and  in  some  measure  by  situation,  as 
one  pledged  to  a  polemic  attitude  by  his  sect,  he  was 
a  general  disliker  and  a  general  suspecter.  His  con 
fidence  in  human  nature  was  small ;  for  he  saw  tho 


220  JOHN    FOSTER. 

clay  of  the  composite  statue,  but  not  its  gold  ;  and 
apparently  his  satisfaction  with  himself  was  not  much 
greater.  Inexhaustible  was  his  jealousy ;  and  for  that 
reason  his  philanthropy  was  everywhere  checked  by 
frost  and  wintry  chills.  This  blight  of  asceticism  in 
his  nature  is  not  of  a  kind  to  be  briefly  illustrated,  for 
it  lies  diffused  through  the  texture  of  his  writings.  But 
of  his  other  monkish  characteristic,  his  abstraction 
from  the  movement  and  life  of  his  own  age,  I  may 
give  this  instance,  which  I  observed  by  accident  about 
a  year  since  in  some  late  edition  of  his  Essays. 
He  was  speaking  of  the  term  radical  as  used  to 
designate  a  large  political  party ;  but  so  slightly  was 
he  acquainted  with  the  history  of  that  party,  so  little 
had  he  watched  the  growth  of  this  important  interest 
in  our  political  system,  that  he  supposes  the  term 
'Radical'  to  express  a  mere  scoff  or  movement  of 
irony  from  the  antagonists  of  that  party.  It  stands, 
as  he  fancies,  upon  the  same  footing  as  'Puritan,' 
'  Roundhead,'  &c.  amongst  our  fathers,  or  '  Svvaddler,' 
applied  to  the  Evangelicals  amongst  ourselves.  This 
may  seem  a  trifle;  nor  do  I  mention  the  mistake  for 
any  evil  which  it  can  lead  to,  but  for  the  dreamy  inat 
tention  which  it  argues  to  what  was  most  important  in 
the  agitations  around  him.  It  may  cause  nothing;  but 
how  much  does  it  presume  ?  Could  a  man,  interested 
in  the  motion  of  human  principles,  or  the  revolutions  of 
his  own  country,  have  failed  to  notice  the  rise  of  a  new 
party  which  loudly  proclaimed  its  own  mission  and 
purposes  in  the  very  name  which  it  assumed  ?  The 
term  'Radical'  was  used  elliptically  :  Mr.  Hunt,  and 
all  about  him,  constantly  gave  out  that  they  were 


JOHN    FOSTER.  221 

reformers  who  went  to  the  root  —  radical  reformers; 
whilst  all  previous  political  parties  they  held  to  be 
merely  masquerading  as  reformers,  or,  at  least,  want 
ing  in  the  determination  to  go  deep  enough.  The 
party-name  4  Radical '  was  no  insult  of  enemies  ;  it 
was  a  cognizance  self-adopted  by  the  party  which  it 
designates,  and  worn  with  pride  ;  and  whatever  might 
be  the  degree  of  personal  weight  belonging  to  Mr. 
Hunt,  no  man,  who  saw  into  the  composition  of  society 
amongst  ourselves,  could  doubt  that  his  principles  were 
destined  to  a  most  extensive  diffusion  —  were  sure  of 
a  permanent  settlement  amongst  the  great  party  in 
terests —  and,  therefore,  sure  of  disturbing  thencefor- 
wards  for  ever  the  previous  equilibrium  of  forces  in 
our  English  social  system.  To  mistake  the  origin  or 
history  of  a  word  —  is  nothing;  but  to  mistake  it  when 
that  history  of  a  word  ran  along  with  the  history  of  a 
thing  destined  to  change  all  the  aspects  of  our  English 
present  and  future  —  implies  a  sleep  of  Epimenides 
amongst  the  shocks  which  are  unsettling  the  realities 
of  earth. 

The  four  original  essays,  by  which  Foster  was  first 
known  to  the  public,  are  those  by  which  he  is  still  best 
known.  It  cannot  be  said  of  them  that  they  have  any 
practical  character  calculated  to  serve  the  uses  of  life. 
They  terminate  in  speculations  that  apply  themselves 
little  enough  to  any  business  of  the  world.  Whether 
a  man  should  write  memoirs  of  himself  cannot  have 
any  personal  interest  for  one  reader  in  a  myriad. 
And  two  of  the  essays  have  even  a  misleading  ten 
dency.  That  upon  fc  Decision  of  Character '  places  a 
very  exaggerated  valuation  upon  one  quality  of  human 


222  JOHN    FOSTER. 

temperament,  which  is  neither  rare,  nor  at  all  necessa 
rily  allied  with  the  most  elevated  features  of  moral 
grandeur.  Coleridge,  because  he  had  no  business  tal 
ents  himself,  admired  them  preposterously  in  others  ; 
or  fancied  them  vast  when  they  existed  only  in  a  slight 
degree.  And,  upon  the  same  principle,  I  suspect  that 
Mr.  Foster  rated  so  highly  the  quality  of  decision  in 
matters  of  action,  chiefly  because  he  wanted  it  himself. 
Obstinacy  is  a  gift  more  extensively  sown  than  Foster 
was  willing  to  admit.  And  his  scale  of  appreciation, 
if  it  were  practically  applied  to  the  men  of  history, 
would  lead  to  judgments  immoderately  perverse.  Mil 
ton  would  rank  far  below  Luther.  In  reality,  as  Mr. 
Gilfillan  justly  remarks,  '  Decision  of  character  is  not, 
strictly,  a  moral  power ;  and  it  is  extremely  dangerous 
to  pay  that  homage  to  any  intellectual  quality,  which  is 
sacred  to  virtue  alone.'  But  even  this  estimate  must 
often  tend  to  exaggeration  ;  for  the  most  inexorable 
decision  is  much  more  closely  connected  with  bodily 
differences  of  temperament  than  with  any  superiority 
of  mind.  It  rests  too  much  upon  a  physical  basis ; 
and  of  all  qualities  whatever,  it  is  the  most  liable  to 
vicious  varieties  of  degeneration.  The  worst  result 
from  this  essay  is  not  merely  speculative  ;  it  trains  the 
feelings  to  false  admirations  ;  and  upon  a  path  which 
is  the  more  dangerous,  as  the  besetting  temptation  of 
our  English  life  lies  already  towards  an  estimate  much 
too  high  of  all  qualities  bearing  upon  the  active  and 
the  practical.  We  need  no  spur  in  that  direction. 

The  essay  upon  the  use  of  technically  religious 
language  seems  even  worse  by  its  tendency,  although 
the  necessities  of  the  subject  will  for  ever  neutralize 


JOHN    FOSTER.  223 

Foster's  advice.  Mr.  Gilfillan  is,  in  this  instance,  dis 
posed  to  defend  him  :  4  Foster  does  not  ridicule  the 
use,  but  the  abuse,  of  technical  language,  as  applied 
to  divine  things ;  and  proposes,  merely  as  an  experi 
ment,  to  translate  it,  in  accommodation  to  fastidious 
tastes.'  Safely,  however,  it  may  be  assumed,  that,  in 
all  such  cases,  the  fastidious  taste  is  but  another  aspect 
of  hatred  to  religious  themes,  —  a  hatred  which  there 
is  neither  justice  nor  use  in  attempting  to  propitiate. 
Cant  words  ought  certainly  to  be  proscribed,  as  de 
grading  to  the  majesty  of  religion  ;  the  word  4  prayer 
ful,'  for  instance,  so  commonly  used  of  late  years, 
seems  objectionable  ;  and  such  words  as  4  savory,' 
which  is  one  of  those  cited  by  Foster  himself,  are 
absolutely  abominable,  when  applied  to  spiritual  or 
intellectual  objects.  It  is  not  fastidiousness,  but  man 
liness  and  good  feeling,  which  are  outraged  by  such 
vulgarities.  On  the  other  hand,  the  word  'grace' 
expresses  an  idea  so  exclusively  belonging  to  Chris 
tianity,  and  so  indispensable  to  the  wholeness  of  its 
philosophy,  that  any  attempt  to  seek  for  equiva 
lent  terms  of  mere  human  growth,  or  amongst  the 
vocabularies  of  mere  worldly  usage,  must  terminate  in 
conscious  failure,  or  else  in  utter  self-delusion.  Chris 
tianity,  having  introduced  many  ideas  that  are  abso 
lutely  new,  such  as  faith,  charity,  holiness,  the  nature 
of  God,  of  human  frailty,  &c.  is  as  much  entitled 
(nay  as  much  obliged  and  pledged)  to  a  peculiar  lan 
guage  and  terminology  as  chemistry.  Let  a  man  try 
if  he  can  find  a  word  in  the  market-place  fitted  to  be 
the  substitute  for  the  word  gas  or  alkali.  The  danger, 
in  fact,  lies  exactly  in  the  opposite  direction  to  that 


224  JOHN    FOSTER. 

indicated  by  Foster.  No  fear  that  men  of  elegant 
taste  should  be  revolted  by  the  use  of  what,  after  all, 
is  scriptural  language  ;  for  it  is  plain  that  he  who  could 
be  so  revolted,  wants  nothing  seriously  with  religion. 
But  there  is  great  fear  that  any  general  disposition  to 
angle  for  readers  of  extra  refinement,  or  to  court  the 
effeminately  fastidious  by  sacrificing  the  majestic  sim 
plicities  of  scriptural  diction,  would  and  must  end  in 
a  ruinous  dilution  of  religious  truths  ;  along  with  the 
characteristic  language  of  Christian  philosophy,  would 
exhale  its  characteristic  doctrines. 


WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 


THIS  man,  who  would  have  drawn  in  the  scales 
against  a  select  vestry  of  Fosters,  is  for  the  present 
deeper  in  the  world's  oblivion  than  the  man  with  whom 
I  here  connect  his  name.  That  seems  puzzling.  For, 
if  Ilazlitt  were  misanthropic,  so  was  Foster :  both  as 
writers  were  splenetic  and  more  than  peevish  ;  but 
Hazlitt  requited  his  reader  for  the  pain  of  travelling 
through  so  gloomy  an  atmosphere,  by  the  rich  vegeta 
tion  which  his  teeming  intellect  threw  up  as  it  moved 
along.  The  soil  in  his  brain  was  of  a  volcanic  fertility  ; 
whereas,  in  Foster,  as  in  some  tenacious  clay,  if  the 
life  were  deep,  it  was  slow  and  sullen  in  its  throes. 
The  reason  for  at  all  speaking  of  them  in  connec 
tion  is,  that  both  were  essayists  ;  neither  in  fact  writing 
anything  of  note  except  essays,  moral  or  critical ;  and 
both  were  bred  at  the  feet  of  Dissenters.  But  how 
different  were  the  results  from  that  connection  !  Foster 
turned  it  to  a  blessing,  winning  the  jewel  that  is  most 
of  all  to  be  coveted,  peace  and  the  fallentis  semita 
Ilazlitt,  on  the  other  hand,  sailed  wilfully  away 

*  '  Gallery  of  Literary  Portraits. '     By  George  Gilfillan. 
15 


226  WILLIAM    IIAZLITT. 

from  this  sheltering  harbor  of  his  father's  profession, — 
for  sheltering  it  might  have  proved  to  Aim,  and  did 
prove  to  his  youth,  —  only  to  toss  ever  afterwards  as  a 
drifting  wreck  at  the  mercy  of  storms.  Hazlitt  was 
not  one  of  those  who  could  have  illustrated  the  benefits 
of  a  connection  with  a  sect,  i.  e.  with  a  small  confede 
ration  hostile  by  position  to  a  larger ;  for  the  hostility 
from  without,  in  order  to  react,  presumes  a  concord 
from  within.  Nor  does  his  case  impeach  the  correct 
ness  of  what  I  have  said  on  that  subject  in  speaking  of 
Foster.  He  owed  no  introduction  to  the  Dissenters ; 
but  it  was  because  he  would,  owe  none.  The  Ishmael- 
ite,  whose  hand  is  against  every  man,  yet  smiles  at 
the  approach  of  a  brother,  and  gives  the  salutation  of 
c  Peace  be  with  you  ! '  to  the  tribe  of  his  father.  But 
Hazlitt  smiled  upon  no  man,  nor  exchanged  tokens  of 
peace  with  the  nearest  of  fraternities.  Wieland  in  his 
*  Oberon,'  says  of  a  benign  patriarch  — 

'His  eye  a  smile  on  all  creation  beain'd.' 

Travestied  as  to  one  word,  the  line  would  have  de 
scribed  Hazlitt  — 

'His  eye  a  scowl  on  all  creation  beam'd.' 

This  inveterate  misanthropy  was  constitutional  ;  exas 
perated  it  certainly  had  been  by  accidents  of  life,  by 
disappointments,  by  mortifications,  by  insults,  and  still 
more  by  having  wilfully  placed  himself  in  collision 
from  the  first  with  all  the  interests  that  were  in  the 
sunshine  of  this  world,  and  with  all  the  persons  that 
were  then  powerful  in  England.  But  my  impression 
was,  if  I  had  a  right  to  have  any  impression  with  regard 
to  one  whom  I  knew  so  slightly,  that  no  change  of 


WILLIAM    HAZLITT.  227 

position  or  of  fortunes  could  have  brought  Hazlitt  into 
reconciliation  with  the  fashion  of  this  world,  or  of  this 
England,  or  '  this  now.'  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  hated 
those  whom  hollow  custom  obliged  him  to  call  his 
4  friends,'  considerably  more  than  those  whom  notori 
ous  differences  of  opinion  entitled  him  to  rank  as  his 
enemies.  At  least  within  the  ring  of  politics  this  was 
so.  Between  those  particular  Whigs  whom  literature 
had  connected  him  with,  and  the  whole  gang  of  us 
Conservatives,  he  showed  the  same  difference  in  his 
mode  of  fencing  and  parrying,  and  even  in  his  style  of 
civilities,  as  between  the  domestic  traitor,  hiding  a 
stiletto  among  his  robes  of  peace,  and  the  bold  enemy 
who  sends  a  trumpet  before  him,  and  rides  up  sword- 
in-hand  against  your  gates.  Whatever  is  —  so  much 
I  conceive  to  have  been  a  fundamental  lemma  for 
Hazlitt  —  is  wrong.  So  much  he  thought  it  safe  to 
postulate.  Hoiv  it  was  wrong,  might  require  an  im 
practicable  investigation  ;  you  might  fail  for  a  century 
to  discover:  but  that  it  was  wrong,  he  nailed  down  as 
a  point  of  faith,  that  could  stand  out  against  all  counter- 
presumptions  from  argument,  or  counter-evidences  from 
experience.  A  friend  of  his  it  was,  a  friend  wishing 
to  love  him,  and  admiring  him  almost  to  extravagance, 
who  told  me,  in  illustration  of  the  dark  sinister  gloom 
which  sat  for  ever  upon  Hazlitt's  countenance  and 
gestures,  that  involuntarily  when  Hazlitt  put  his  hand 
within  his  waistcoat,  (as  a  mere  unconscious  trick  of 
habit,)  he  himself  felt  a  sudden  recoil  of  fear,  as  from 
one  who  was  searching  for  a  hidden  dagger.  Like  '  a 
Moor  of  Malabar,'  as  described  in  the  Faery  Queen, 
at  intervals  Hazlitt  threw  up  his  angry  eyes,  and  dark 


228  WILLIAM    HAZL1TT. 

locks,  as  if  wishing  to  affront  the  sun,  or  to  search  the 
air  for  hostility.  And  the  same  friend,  on  another 
occasion,  described  the  sort  of  feudal  fidelity  to  his 
belligerent  duties,  which  in  company  seemed  to  ani 
mate  Hazlitt,  as  though  he  were  mounting  guard  on  all 
the  citadels  of  malignity,  under  some  sacramentum 
militaire,  by  the  following  trait,  —  that,  if  it  had  hap 
pened  to  Hazlitt  to  be  called  out  of  the  room,  or  to  be 
withdrawn  for  a  moment  from  the  current  of  the  gene 
ral  conversation,  by  a  fit  of  abstraction,  or  by  a 
private  whisper  to  himself  from  some  person  sitting  at 
his  elbow,  always  on  resuming  his  place  as  a  party  to 
what  might  be  called  the  public  business  of  the  compa 
ny,  he  looked  round  him  with  a  mixed  air  of  suspicion 
and  defiance,  such  as  seemed  to  challenge  everybody 
by  some  stern  adjuration  into  revealing  whether,  dur 
ing  his  own  absence  or  inattention,  anything  had  been 
said  demanding  condign  punishment  at  his  hands. 
'Has. any  man  uttered  or  presumed  to  insinuate,'  he 
seemed  to  insist  upon  knowing,  '  during  this  inter reg- 
num,  things  that  I  ought  to  proceed  against  as  treason 
able  to  the  interests  which  I  defend  ? '  He  had  the 
unresting  irritability  of  Rousseau,  but  in  a  nobler  shape  ; 
for  Rousseau  transfigured  every  possible  act  or  design 
of  his  acquaintances  into  some  personal  relation  to 
himself.  Thevvile  act  was  obviously  meant,  as  a  child 
could  understand,  to  injure  the  person  of  Rousseau,  or 
his  interests,  or  his  reputation.  It  was  meant  to  wound 
his  feelings,  or  to  misrepresent  his  acts  calumniously, 
or  secretly  to  supplant  his  footing.  But,  on  the  con 
trary,  Hazlitt  viewed  all  personal  affronts  or  casual 
slights  towards  himself,  as  tending  to  something  more 


WILLIAM    HAZLITT.  229 

general,  and  masquing  under  a  pretended  horror  of 
Hazlitt,  the  author,  a  real  hatred,  deeper  than  it  was 
always  safe  to  avow,  for  those  social  interests  which  he 
was  reputed  to  defend.  'It  was  not  Hazlitt  whom  the 
wretches  struck  at;  no,  no  —  it  was  democracy,  or  it 
was  freedom,  or  it  was  Napoleon,  whose  shadow  they 
saw  in  the  rear  of  Hazlitt ;  and  Napoleon,  not  for  any 
thing  in  him  that  might  he  really  bad,  but  in  revenge 
of  that  consuming  wrath  against  the  thrones  of  Chris 
tendom,  for  which  (said  Hazlitt)  let  us  glorify  his 
name  eternally.' 

Yet  Hazlitt,  like  other  men,  and  perhaps  with  more 
bitterness  than  other  men,  sought  for  love  and  for 
intervals  of  rest,  in  which  all  anger  might  sleep,  and 
enmity  might  be  laid  aside  like  a  travelling  dress, 
after  tumultuous  journeys : 

'  Though  the  sea-horse  on  the  ocean 

Own  no  dear  domestic  cave, 
Yet  he  slumbers  without  motion 
On  the  still  and  halcyon  wave. 

If,  on  windy  days,  the  raven 

Gambol  like  a  dancing  skiff, 
Not  the  less  he  loves  his  haven 

On  the  bosom  of  a  cliff. 

If  almost  with  eagle  pinion 

O'er  the  Alps  the  chamois  roam, 
Yet  he  has  some  small  dominion, 

Which,  no  doubt,  he  calls  his  home.' 

But  Hazlitt,  restless  as  the  sea-horse,  as  the  raven, 
as  the  chamois,  found  not  their  respites  from  storm  ; 
he  sought,  but  sought  in  vain.  And  for  him  the 


.' 


230  WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

closing  stanza  of  that  little  poem  remained  true  to 
his  dying  hour :  in  the  person  of  the  '  Wandering 
Jew,'  he  might  complain, — 

'  Day  and  night  my  toils  redouble  : 

Never  nearer  to  the  goal, 
Night  and  day  I  feel  the  trouble 
Of  the  wanderer  in  my  soul.' 

Domicile  he  had  not,  round  whose  hearth  his  affections 
might  gather :  rest  he  had  not,  for  the  sole  of  his 
burning  foot.  One  chance  of  regaining  some  peace, 
or  a  chance  as  he  trusted  for  a  time,  was  torn  from 
him  at  the  moment  of  gathering  its  blossoms.  He 
had  been  divorced  from  his  wife,  not  by  the  law  of 
England,  which  would  have  argued  criminality  in  her, 
but  by  Scottish  law,  satisfied  with  some  proof  of 
frailty  in  himself.  Subsequently  he  became  deeply 
fascinated  by  a  young  woman,  in  no  very  elevated 
rank,  for  she  held  some  domestic  office  of  superin 
tendence  in  a  boarding-house  kept  by  her  father,  but 
of  interesting  person,  and  endowed  with  strong  intel 
lectual  sensibilities.  She  had  encouraged  Hazlitt ; 
had  gratified  him  by  reading  his  works  with  intelligent 
sympathy  ;  and,  under  what  form  of  duplicity  it  is 
hard  to  say,  had  partly  engaged  her  faith  to  Hazlitt 
as  his  future  wife,  whilst  secretly  she  was  holding  a 
correspondence,  too  tender  to  be  misinterpreted,  with 
a  gentleman  resident  in  the  same  establishment.  Sus 
picions  were  put  aside  for  a  time  ;  but  they  returned, 
and  gathered  too  thickly  for  Hazlitt's  penetration  to 
cheat  itself  any  longer.  Once  and  for  ever  he  re 
solved  to  satisfy  himself.  On  a  Sunday,  fatal  to  him 


WILLIAM    HAZLITT.  231 

and  his  farewell  hopes  of  domestic  happiness,  he  had 
reason  to  believe  that  she,  whom  he  now  loved  to 
excess,  had  made  some  appointment  out-of-doors  with 
his  rival.  It  was  in  London ;  and  through  the  crowds 
of  London,  Hazlitt  followed  her  steps  to  the  rendez 
vous.  Fancying  herself  lost  in  the  multitude  that 
streamed  through  Lincolns-inn-fields,  the  treacherous 
young  woman  met  her  more  favored  lover  without 
alarm,  and  betrayed,  too  clearly  for  any  further  decep 
tion,  the  state  of  her  affections  by  the  tenderness  of 
her  manner.  There  went  out  the  last  light  that  threw 
a  guiding  ray  over  the  storm-vexed  course  of  Hazlitt. 
He  was  too  much  in  earnest,  and  he  had  witnessed 
too  much,  to  be  deceived  or  appeased.  1 1  whistled 
her  down  the  wind,'  was  his  own  account  of  the  catas 
trophe  :  but,  in  doing  so,  he  had  torn  his  own  heart 
strings,  entangled  with  her  'jesses.1  Neither  did  he, 
as  others  would  have  done,  seek  to  disguise  his  misfor 
tune.  On  the  contrary,  he  cared  not  for  the  ridicule 
attached  to  such  a  situation  amongst  the  unfeeling : 
the  wrench  within  had  been  too  profound  to  leave 
room  for  sensibility  to  the  sneers  outside.  A  fast 
friend  of  his  at  that  time,  and  one  who  never  ceased 
to  be  his  apologist,  described  him  to  me  as  having 
become  absolutely  maniacal  during  the  first  pressure 
of  this  affliction.  He  went  about  proclaiming  the 
case,  and  insisting  on  its  details,  to  every  stranger 
that  would  listen.  He  even  published  the  whole  story 
to  the  world,  in  his  '  Modern  Pygmalion.'  And  peo 
ple  generally,  who  could  not  be  aware  of  his  feelings, 
or  the  way  in  which  this  treachery  acted  upon  his 
mind  as  a  ratification  of  all  other  treacheries  and 


232  WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

wrongs  that  he  had  suffered  through  life,  laughed  at 
him,  or  expressed  disgust  for  him  as  too  coarsely 
indelicate  in  making  such  disclosures.  But  there  was 
no  indelicacy  in  such  an  act  of  confidence,  growing, 
as  it  did,  out  of  his  lacerated  heart.  It  was  an  explo 
sion  of  frenzy.  He  threw  out  his  clamorous  anguish 
to  the  clouds,  and  to  the  winds,  and  to  the  air  ;  caring 
riot  who  might  listen,  who  might  sympathize,  or  who 
might  sneer.  Pity  was  no  demand  of  his ;  laughter 
was  no  wrong  :  the  sole  necessity  for  him  was  —  to 
empty  his  over-burdened  spirit. 

After  this  desolating  experience,  the  exasperation 
of  Hazlitt's  political  temper  grew  fiercer,  darker, 
steadier.  His  'Life  of  Napoleon'  was  prosecuted 
subsequently  to  this,  and  perhaps  under  this  remem 
brance,  as  a  reservoir  that  might  receive  all  the  vast 
overflows  of  his  wrath,  much  of  which  was  not  merely 
political,  or  in  a  spirit  of  bacchanalian  partisanship, 
but  was  even  morbidly  anti-social.  He  hated,  with! 

\  all  his  heart,  every  institution  of  man,  and  all  his  | 
pretensions.  He  loathed  his  own  relation  to  the  » 
human  race. 

It  was  but  on  a  few  occasions  that  I  ever  met  Mr- 
Hazlitt  myself;  and  those  occasions,  or  all  but  one, 

•  were  some  time  subsequent  to  the  case  of  female 
treachery  which  I  have  here  described.  Twice,  I 
think,  or  it  might  be  three  times,  we  walked  for  a 
few  miles  together  :  it  was  in  London,  late  at  night, 
and  after  leaving  a  party.  Though  depressed  by  the 
spectacle  of  a  mind  always  in  agitation  from  the 
gloomier  passions,  I  was  yet  amused  by  the  perti 
nacity  with  which  he  clung,  through  bad  reasons  or 


WILLIAM    HAZL1TT.  233 

no  reasons,  to  any  public  slander  floating  against  men 
in  power,  or  in  the  highest  rank.  No  feather,  or  dowl 
of  a  feather,  but  was  heavy  enough  for  him.  Amongst 
other  instances  of  this  willingness  to  be  deluded  by 
rumors,  if  they  took  a  direction  favorable  to  his  own 
bias,  Hazlitt  had  adopted  the  whole  strength  of  popu 
lar  hatred  which  for  many  years  ran  violently  against 
the  King  of  Hanover,  at  that  time  Duke  of  Cumber 
land.  A  dark  calumny  had  arisen  against  this  prince, 
amongst  the  populace  of  London,  as  though  he  had 
been  accessary  to  the  death  of  his  valet.  This  valet 
[Sellis]  had,  in  fact,  attempted  to  murder  the  prince ; 
and  all  that  can  be  said  in  palliation  of  his  act,  is, 
that  he  believed  himself  to  have  sustained,  in  the 
person  of  his  beautiful  wife,  the  heaviest  dishonor 
incident  to  man.  How  that  matter  stood,  I  pretend 
not  to  know :  the  attempt  at  murder  was  baffled  ;  and 
the  valet  then  destroyed  himself  with  a  razor.  All 
this  had  been  regularly  sifted  by  a  coroner's  inquest ; 
and  I  remarked  to  Hazlitt,  that  the  witnesses  seemed 
to  have  been  called,  indifferently,  from  all  quarters 
likely  to  have  known  the  facts  ;  so  that,  if  this  inquest 
had  failed  to  elicit  the  truth,  we  might,  with  equal 
reason,  presume  as  much  of  all  other  inquests.  From 
the  verdict  of  a  jury,  except  in  very  peculiar  cases, 
no  candid  and  temperate  man  will  allow  himself  to 
believe  any  appeal  sustainable  :  for,  having  the  wit 
nesses  before  them  face  to  face,  and  hearing  the  whole 
of  the  evidence,  a  jury  have  always  some  means  of 
forming  a  judgment  which  cannot  be  open  to  him  who 
depends  upon  an  abridged  report.  But,  on  this  sub 
ject,  Hazlitt  would  hear  no  reason.  He  said  —  c  No  : 


234  WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

all  the  princely  houses  of  Europe  have  the  instinct 
of  murder  running  in  their  blood;  —  they  cherish  it 
through  their  privilege  of  making  war,  which  being 
wholesale  murder,  once  having  reconciled  themselves 
to  that,  they  think  of  retail  murder,  committed  on 
you  or  me,  as  of  no  crime  at  all.'  Under  this  obsti 
nate  prejudice  against  the  duke,  Hazlitt  read  every 
thing  that  he  did,  or  did  not  do,  in  a  perverse  spirit. 
And,  in  one  of  these  nightly  walks,  he  mentioned  to 
me,  as  something  quite  worthy  of  a  murderer,  the 
following  little  trait  of  casuistry  in  the  royal  duke's 
distribution  of  courtesies.  '  I  saw  it  myself,'  said 
Hazlitt,  c  so  no  coroner's  jury  can  put  me  down.'  His 
royal  highness  had  rooms  in  St.  James's  ;  and,  one 
day,  as  he  was  issuing  from  the  palace  into  Pall-Mall, 
Hazlitt  happened  to  be  immediately  behind  him  ;  he 
could  therefore  watch  his  motions  along  the  whole 
line  of  his  progress.  It  is  the  custom  in  England, 
wheresoever  the  persons  of  the  royal  family  are  fa 
miliar  to  the  public  eye,  as  at  Windsor,  &,c.,  that  all 
passengers  in  the  streets,  on  seeing  them,  walk  bare 
headed,  or  make  some  signal  of  dutiful  respect.  On 
this  occasion,  all  the  men,  who  met  the  prince,  took 
off  their  hats  ;  the  prince  acknowledging  every  such 
obeisance  by  a  separate  bow.  Pall-Mali  being  fin 
ished,  and  its  whole  harvest  of  royal  salutations  gath 
ered  in,  next  the  duke  came  to  Cockspur  street.  But 
here,  and  taking  a  station  close  to  the  crossing,  which 
daily  he  beautified  and  polished  with  his  broom,  stood 
a  Negro  sweep.  If  human  at  all,  which  some  people 
doubted,  he  was  pretty  nearly  as  abject  a  representa 
tive  of  our  human  family  divine  as  can  ever  have 


WILLIAM    IIAZWTT  235 


existed.  Still  he 'was  held  to  be  a^J^#  tfib"  law  of 
the  land,  which  would  have  hanged  any  person,  <^<>ntle 
or  simple,  for  cutting  his  throat.  Law,  (it  is  certain,) 
conceived  him  to  be  a  man,  however  poor  a  one  ; 
though  Medicine,  in  an  under-tone,  muttered,  some 
times,  a  demur  to  that  opinion.  But  here  the  sweep 
was,  whether  man  or  beast,  standing  humbly  in  the 
path  of  royalty  :  vanish  he  would  not ;  he  was,  (as 
The  Times  says  of  the  Corn-League,)  *  a  great  fact,' 
if  rather  a  muddy  one  ;  and  though,  by  his  own  con 
fession,  (repeated  one  thousand  times  a  day,)  both 
4  a  nigger'  and  a  sweep,  ['Remember  poor  nigger, 
your  honor ! '  4  remember  poor  sweep  !']  yet  the  crea 
ture  could  take  off  his  rag  of  a  hat,  and  earn  the  bow 
of  a  prince,  as  well  as  any  white  native  of  St.  James's. 
What  was  to  be  done  ?  A  great  case  of  conscience 
was  on  the  point  of  being  raised  in  the  person  of  a 
paralytic  nigger ;  nay,  possibly  a  state  question  — 
Ought  a  son  of  England,*  could  a  son  of  England, 


*  '  Son  of  England ;  '  i.  e.}  prince  of  the  blood  in  the  direct, 
and  not  in  the  collateral,  line.  I  mention  this  for  the  sake  of 
some  readers,  who  may  not  be  aware  that  this  beautiful  for 
mula,  so  well  known  in  France,  is  often  transferred  by  the 
French  writers  of  memoirs  to  our  English  princes,  though  little 
used  amongst  ourselves.  Gaston,  Duke  of  Orleans,  brother  of 
Louis  XIV.,  was  '  a  son  of  France,'  as  being  a  child  of  Louis 
XIII.  But  the  son  of  Gaston,  viz.,  the  Regent  Duke  of 
Orleans,  was  a  grandson  of  France.  The  first  wife  of  Gaston, 
our  Princess  Henrietta,  was  called  '  Fille  d'Angleterre,'  as 
being  a  daughter  of  Charles  I.  The  Princess  Charlotte,  again, 
was  a  daughter  of  England  ;  her  present  majesty,  a  grand 
daughter  of  England.  But  all  these  ladies  collectively  would 
be  called,  on  the  French  principle,  the  children  of  England. 


236  WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

descend  from  his  majestic  pedestal  to  gild  with  the 
rays  of  his  condescension  such  a  grub,  such  a  very 
doubtful  grub,  as  this?  Total  Pall-Mall  was  sagacious 
of  the  coming  crisis  ;  judgment  was  going  to  be  deliv 
ered  ;  a  precedent  to  be  raised  ;  and  Pall-Mall  stood 
still,  with  Hazlitt  at  its  head,  to  learn  the  issue.  How 
if  the  black  should  be  a  Jacobin,  and  (in  the  event  of 
the  duke's  bowing)  should  have  a  bas-relief  sculptured 
on  his  tomb,  exhibiting  an  English  prince,  and  a  Ger 
man  king,  as  two  separate  personages,  in  the  act  of 
worshipping  his  broom  ?  Luckily,  it  was  not  the 
black's  province  to  settle  the  case.  The  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  seeing  no  counsel  at  hand  to  argue  either 
the  pro  or  the  contra,  found  himself  obliged  to  settle 
the  question  de  piano;  so,  drawing  out  his  purse,  he 
kept  his  hat  as  rigidly  settled  on  his  head,  as  William 
Penn  and  Mead  did  before  the  Recorder  of  London. 
All  Pall-Mall  applauded:  contradicente  Gulielmo  Haz 
litt,  and  Hazlitt  only.  The  black  swore  that  the 
prince  gave  him  half-a-crown  ;  but  whether  he  re 
garded  this  in  the  light  of  a  god-send  to  his  avarice,' 
or  a  shipwreck  to  his  ambition  —  whether  he  was  more 
thankful  for  the  money  gained,  or  angry  for  the  honor 
lost  —  did  not  transpire.  '  No  matter,'  said  Hazlitt, 
'  the  black  might  be  a  fool  ;  but  I  insist  upon  it,  that 
he  was  entitled  to  the  bow,  since  all  Pall-Mall  had  it 
before  him  ;  and  that  it  was  unprincely  to  refuse  it.' 
Either  as  a  black  or  as  a  scavenger,  Hazlitt  held  him 
'qualified'  for  sustaining  a  royal  bow:  as  a  black, 
was  he  not  a  specimen  (if  rather  a  damaged  one)  of 
the  homo  sapiens  described  by  Linnrcus  ?  As  a  sweep, 
in  possession  (by  whatever  title)  of  a  lucrative  cross- 


WILLIAM    HAZLITT.  237 

ing,  had  he  not  a  kind  of  estate  in  London?  Was  he 
not,  said  Hazlitt,  a  fellow-subject,  capable  of  com 
mitting  treason,  and  paying  taxes  into  the  treasury  ? 
Not  perhaps  in  any  direct  shape,  but  indirect  taxes 
most  certainly  on  his  tobacco  —  and  even  on  his 
broom  ? 

These  things  could  not  be  denied.  But  still,  when 
my  turn  came  for  speaking,  I  confessed  frankly  that 
(politics  apart)  my  feeling  in  the  case  went  along  with 
the  duke's.  The  bow  would  not  be  so  useful  to  the 
black  as  the  half-crown :  he  could  not  possibly  have 
both  ;  for  how  could  any  man  make  a  bow  to  a  beggar 
when  in  the  act  of  giving  him  half-a-crown  ?  Then, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  bow,  so  useless  to  the  sweep, 
and  (to  speak  by  a  vulgar  adage)  as  superfluous  as  a 
side-pocket  to  a  cow,  would  react  upon  the  other  bows 
distributed  along  the  line  of  Pall-Mall,  so  as  to  neutral 
ize  them  one  and  all.  No  honor  could  continue  such 
in  which  a  paralytic  negro  sweep  was  associated.  This 
distinction,  however,  occurred  to  me;  that  if,  instead 
of  a  prince  and  a  subject,  the  royal  dispenser  of  bows 
had  been  a  king,  he  ought  not  to  have  excluded  the 
black  from  participation ;  because,  as  the  common 
father  of  his  people,  he  ought  not  to  know  of  any  dif 
ference  amongst  those  who  are  equally  his  children. 
And  in  illustration  of  that  opinion,  I  sketched  a  little 
scene  which  I  had  myself  witnessed,  and  with  great 
pleasure,  upon  occasion  of  a  visit  made  to  Drury  Lane 
by  George  IV.  when  regent.  At  another  time  I  may 
tell  it  to  the  reader.  Hazlitt,  however,  listened  fret 
fully  to  me  when  praising  the  deportment  and  beautiful 
gestures  of  one  conservative  leader ;  though  he  had 


238  WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

compelled  me  to  hear  the  most  disadvantageous  com 
ments  on  another. 

/  As  a  lecturer,  I  do  not  know  what  Hazlitt  was,  hav 
ing  never  had  an  opportunity  of  hearing  him.  Some 
qualities  in  his  style  of  composition  were  calculated  to 
assist  the  purposes  of  a  lecturer,  who  must  produce  an 
effect  oftentimes  by  independent  sentences  and  para 
graphs,  who  must  glitter  and  surprise,  who  must  turn 
round  within  the  narrowest  compass,  and  cannot  rely 
upon  any  sort  of  attention  that  would  cost  an  effort. 
Mr.  Gilfillan  says,  that  '  He  proved  more  popular  than 
was  expected  by  those  who  knew  his  uncompromising 
scorn  of  all  those  tricks  and  petty  artifices  which  are 
frequently  employed  to  pump  up  applause.  His  man 
ner  was  somewhat  abrupt  and  monotonous,  but  earnest 
and  energetic.'  At  the  same  time,  Mr.  Gilfillan  takes 
an  occasion  to  express  some  opinions,  which  appear 
very  just,  upon  the  unfitness  (generally  speaking)  of 
men  whom  he  describes  as  '  fiercely  inspired,'  for  this 
mode  of  display.  The  truth  is,  that  all  genius  implies 
originality,  and  sometimes  uncontrollable  singularity, 
in  the  habits  of  thinking,  and  in  the  modes  of  viewing, 
as  well  as  of  estimating  objects.  Whereas  a  miscella 
neous  audience  is  best  conciliated  by  that  sort  of  talent 
which  reflects  the  average  mind,  which  is  not  over 
weighted  in  any  one  direction,  is  not  tempted  into  any 
extreme,  and  is  able  to  preserve  a  steady,  rope-dancer's 
equilibrium  of  posture  upon  themes  where  a  man  of 
genius  is  most  apt  to  lose  it. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  have  a  full  and  accurate 
list  of  Hazlitt's  works,  including,  of  course,  his  con 
tributions  to  journals  and  encyclopaedias.  These  last, 


WILLIAM   HAZL1TT.  239 

as  shorter,  and  oftener  springing  from  an  impromptu 
effort,  are  more  likely,  than  his  regular  books,  to  have 
been  written  with  a  pleasurable  enthusiasm  :  and  the 
writer's  proportion  of  pleasure,  in  such  cases,  very 
often  becomes  the  regulating  law  for  his  reader's. 
Amongst  the  philosophical  works  of  Hazlitt,  I  do  not 
observe  that  Mr.  Gilfillan  is  aware  of  two  that  are 
likely  to  be  specially  interesting.  One  is  an  examina 
tion  of  David  Hartley,  at  least  as  to  his  law  of  associa 
tion.  Thirty  years  ago,  I  looked  into  it  slightly ;  but 
my  reverence  for  Hartley  offended  me  with  its  tone  ; 
and  afterwards,  hearing  that  Coleridge  challenged  for 
his  own  most  of  what  was  important  in  the  thoughts,  I 
lost  all  interest  in  the  essay.  Hazlitt,  having  heard 
Coleridge  talk  on  this  theme,  must  have  approached  it 
with  a  mind  largely  preoccupied  as  regarded  the  weak 
points  in  Hartley,  and  the  particular  tactics  for  assail 
ing  them.  But  still  the  great  talents  for  speculative 
research  which  Hazlitt  had  from  nature,  without  having 
given  to  them  the  benefit  of  much  culture  or  much 
exercise,  would  justify  our  attentive  examination  of  the 
work.  It  forms  part  of  the  volume  which  contains  the 
'  Essay  on  Human  Action ; '  which  volume,  by  the 
way,  Mr.  Gilfillan  supposes  to  have  won  the  special 
applause  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  then  in  Bengal. 
This,  if  accurately  stated,  is  creditable  to  Sir  James's 
generosity  :  for,  in  this  particular  volume  it  is,  that 
Hazlitt  makes  a  pointed  assault,  in  sneering  terms,  and 
very  unnecessarily,  upon  Sir  James. 

The  olher  little  work  unnoticed  by  Mr.  Gilfillan,  is 
an  examination  (but  under  what  title  I  cannot  say)  of 
Lindlev  Murray's  English  Grammar.  This  may  seem, 


240  WILLIAM    HAZLITT. 

by  its  subject,  a  trifle  ;  yet  Hazlitt  could  hardly  have 
had  a  motive  for  such  an  effort  but  in  some  philosophic 
perception  of  the  ignorance  betrayed  by  many  gram 
mars  of  our  language,  and  sometimes  by  that  of 
Lindley  Murray  ;  which  Lindley,  by  the  way,  though 
resident  in  England,  was  an  American.  There  is  great 
room  for  a  useful  display  of  philosophic  subtlety  in  an 
English  grammar,  even  though  meant  for  schools. 
Hazlitt  could  not  but  have  furnished  something  of 
value  towards  such  a  display.  And  if  (as  I  was  once 
told)  his  book  was  suppressed,  I  imagine  that  this  sup 
pression  must  have  been  purchased  by  some  powerful 
publisher  interested  in  keeping  up  the  current  reputa 
tion  of  Murray. 

'  Strange  stories,'  says  Mr.  Gilfillan,  '  are  told  about 
his  [Hazlitt's]  latter  days,  and  his  death-bed.'  I  know 
not  whether  I  properly  understand  Mr.  Gilfillan.  The 
stories  which  I  myself  have  happened  to  hear,  were 
not  so  much  c  strange,'  since  they  arose,  naturally 
enough,  out  of  pecuniary  embarrassments,  as  they 
were  afflicting  in  the  turn  they  took.  Dramatically 
viewed,  if  a  man  were  speaking  of  things  so  far  re 
moved  from  our  own  times  and  interests  as  to  excuse 
that  sort  of  language,  the  circumstances  of  Hazlitt's 
last  hours  might  rivet  the  gaze  of  a  critic  as  fitted, 
harmoniously,  with  almost  scenic  art,  to  the  whole 
tenor  of  his  life  ;  fitted  equally  to  rouse  his  wrath,  to 
deepen  his  dejection,  and  in  the  hour  of  death  to -justify 
his  misanthropy.  But  I  have  no  wish  to  utter  a  word 
on  things  which  I  know  only  at  second-hand,  and  can 
not  speak  upon  without  risk  of  misstating  facts  or 


WILLIAM    ILAZLITT.  241 

doing  injustice  to  persons.     I  prefer  closing  this  section 
with  the  words  of  Mr.  Gilfillan  : 

4  Well  says  Bulwer,  that  of  all  the  mental  wrecks 
which  have  occurred  in  our  era,  this  was  the  most  mel 
ancholy.  Others  may  have  been  as  unhappy  in  their 
domestic  circumstances,  and  gone  down  steeper  places 
of  dissipation  than  he ;  but  they  had  meanwhile  the 
breath  of  popularity,  if  not  of  wealth  and  station,  to 
give  them  a  certain  solace.'  What  had  Hazlitt  of  this 
nature  ?  Mr.  Gilfillan  answers,  —  '  Absolutely  nothing 
to  support  and  cheer  him.  With  no  hope,  no  fortune, 
no  status  in  society ;  no  certain  popularity  as  a  writer, 
no  domestic  peace,  little  sympathy  from  kindred  spirits, 
little  support  from  his  political  party,  no  moral  man 
agement,  no  definite  belief;  with  great  powers,  and 
great  passions  within,  and  with  a  host  of  powerful 
enemies  without,  it  was  his  to  enact  one  of  the  saddest 
tragedies  on  which  the  sun  ever  shone.  Such  is  a 
faithful  portraiture  of  an  extraordinary  man,  whose 
restless  intellect  and  stormy  passions  have  now,  for 
fifteen  years,  found  that  repose  in  the  grave  which  was 
denied  them  above  it.'  Mr.  Gilfillan  concludes  with 
expressing  his  conviction,  in  which  I  desire  to  concur, 
that  both  enemies  and  friends  will  now  join  in  admira 
tion  for  the  man  ;  '  both  will  readily  concede  now,  that 
a  subtle  thinker,  an  eloquent  writer,  a  lover  of  beauty 
and  poetry,  and  man  and  truth,  one  of  the  best  of 
critics,  and  not  the  worst  of  men,  expired  in  William 
Hazlitt.'  Requiescat  in  pace  ! 


16 


NOTES  ON  WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDORJ 


NOBODY  in  this  generation  reads  The  Spectator. 
There  are,  however,  several  people  still  surviving 
who  have  read  No.  1  ;  in  whicJh  No.  1  a  strange 
mistake  is  made.  It  is  there  asserted,  as  a  general 
affection  of  human  nature,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
read  a  book  with  satisfaction,  until  one  has  ascertained 
whether  the  author  of  it  be  tall  or  short,  corpulent  or 
thin,  and  as  to  complexion,  whether  he  be  a  '  black ' 
man,  (which,  in  the  Spectators  time,  was  the  absurd 
expression  for  a  swarthy  man,)  or  a  fair  man,  or  a 
sallow  man,  or  perhaps  a  green  man,  which  Southey 
affirmed  l  to  be  the  proper  description  of  many  stout 
artificers  in  Birmingham,  too  much  given  to  work  in 
metallic  fumes;  on  which  account  the  name  of  Southey 
is  an  abomination  to  this  day  in  certain  furnaces  of 
Warwickshire.  But  can  anything  be  more  untrue  than 
this  Spectatorial  doctrine  ?  Did  ever  the  youngest  of 
female  novel  readers,  on  a  sultry  day,  decline  to  eat  a 
bunch  of  grapes  until  she  knew  whether  the  fruiterer 
were  a  good-looking  man  ?  Which  of  us  ever  heard 
a  stranger  inquiring  for  a  4  Guide  to  the  Trosachs,' 


The  Works  of  Walter  Savage  Landor.     2  vols. 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  243 

but  saying,  *  I  scruple,  however,  to  pay  for  this  hook, 
until  I  know  whether  the  author  is  heather-legged.1 
On  this  principle,  if  any  such  principle  prevailed,  we 
authors  should  he  liable  to  as  strict  a  revision  of  our 
physics  before  having  any  right  to  be  read,  as  we  all 
are  before  having  our  lives  insured  from  the  medical 
advisers  of  insurance  offices;  fellows  that  examine  one 
with  stethescopes  ;  that  pinch  one,  that  actually  punch 
one  in  the  ribs,  until  a  man  becomes  savage,  and  —  in 
case  the  insurance  should  miss  fire  in  consequence  of 
the  medical  report  —  speculates  on  the  propriety  of 
prosecuting  the  medical  ruffian  for  an  assault,  for  a 
most  unprovoked  assault  and  battery,  and,  if  possible, 
including  in  the  indictment  the  now  odious  insurance 
office  as  an  accomplice  before  the  fact.  Meantime 
the  odd  thing  is,  not  that  Addison  should  have  made 
a  mistake,  but  that  he  and  his  readers  should,  in  this 
mistake,  have  recognised  a  hidden  truth,  —  the  sudden 
illumination  of  a  propensity  latent  in  all  people,  but 
now  first  exposed  ;  for  it  happens  that  there  really  is  a 
propensity  in  all  of  us,  very  like  what  Addison  de 
scribes  very  different,  and  yet,  after  one  correction, 
the  very  same.  No  reader  cares  about  an  author's 
person  before  reading  his  book  :  it  is  after  reading  it, 
and  supposing  the  book  to  reveal  something  of  the 
writer's  moral  nature,  as  modifying  his  intellect ;  it  is 
for  his  fun,  his  fancy,  his  sadness,  possibly  his  crazi- 
ness,  that  any  reader  cares  about  seeing  the  author  in 
person.  Afflicted  with  the  very  satyriasis  of  curiosity, 
no  man  ever  wished  to  see  the  author  of  a  Ready 
Reckoner,  or  of  a  treatise  on  the  Agislment  Tithe, 
or  on  the  Present  deplorable  Dry-rot  in  Potatoes. 


244  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

4  Bundle  off,  Sir,  as  fast  as  you  can,'  the  most  diligent 
reader  would  say  to  such  an  author,  in  case  he  insisted 
on  submitting  his  charms  to  inspection.  ll  have  had 
quite  enough  distress  of  mind  from  reading  your 
works,  without  needing  the  additional  dry-rot  of  your 
bodily  presence.'  Neither  does  any  man,  on  descend 
ing  from  a  railway  train,  turn  to  look  whether  the 
carriage  in  which  he  has  ridden  happens  to  be  a  good- 
looking  carriage,  or  wish  for  an  introduction  to  the 
coach-maker.  Satisfied  that  the  one  has  not  broken 
his  bones,  and  that  the  other  has  no  writ  against  his 
person,  he  dismisses  with  the  same  frigid  scowl  both 
the  carriage  and  the  author  of  its  existence. 

But,  with  respect  to  Mr.  Landor,  as  at  all  connected 
with  this  reformed  doctrine  of  the  Spectator,  a  diffi 
culty  arises.  He  is  a  man  of  great  genius,  and,  as  such, 
he  ought  to  interest  the  public.  More  than  enough 
appears  of  his  strong,  eccentric  nature,  through  every 
page  of  his  now  extensive  writings,  to  win,  amongst 
those  who  have  read  him,  a  corresponding  interest  in 
all  that  concerns  him  personally  ;  in  his  social  rela 
tions,  in  his  biography,  in  his  manners,  in  his  appear 
ance.  Out  of  two  conditions  for  attracting  a  personal 
interest,  he  has  powerfully  realized  one.  His  moral 
nature,  shining  with  colored  light  through  the  crystal 
shrine  of  his  thoughts,  will  not  allow  of  your  forgetting 
it.  A  sunset  of  Claude,  or  a  dying  dolphin  can  be 
forgotten,  and  generally  is  forgotten  ;  but  not  the  fiery 
radiations  of  a  human  spirit,  built  by  nature  to  animate 
a  leader  in  storms,  a  martyr,  a  national  reformer,  an 
arch-rebel,  as  circumstances  might  dictate,  but  whom 
too  much  wealth,2  and  the  accidents  of  education,  have 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  245 

turned  aside  into  a  contemplative  recluse.  Hud  Mr. 
Landor,  therefore,  been  read  in  any  extent  answering 
to  his  merits,  he  must  have  become,  for  the  English 
public,  an  object  of  prodigious  personal  interest.  We 
should  have  had  novels  upon  him,  lampoons  upon  him, 
libels  upon  him  ;  he  would  have  been  shown  up  dra 
matically  on  the  stage  ;  he  would,  according  to  the  old 
joke,  have  been  4  traduced '  in  French,  and  also  '  over 
set  '  in  Dutch.  Meantime  he  has  not  been  read.  It 
would  be  an  affectation  to  think  it.  Many  a  writer  is, 
by  the  sycophancy  of  literature,  reputed  to  be  read, 
whom  in  all  Europe  not  six  eyes  settle  upon  through 
the  revolving  year.  Literature,  with  its  cowardly  false 
hoods,  exhibits  the  largest  field  of  conscious  Phrygian 
adulation  that  human  life  has  ever  exposed  to  the  de 
rision  of  the  heavens.  Demosthenes,  for  instance,  or 
Plato,  is  not  read  to  the  extent  of  twenty  pages  annu 
ally  by  ten  people  in  Europe.  The  sale  of  their  works 
would  not  account  for  three  readers;  the  other  six  or 
seven  are  generally  conceded  as  possibilities  furnished 
by  the  great  public  libraries.  But,  then,  Walter  Savage 
Landor,  though  writing  a  little  in  Latin,  and  a  very 
little  in  Italian,  does  not  write  at  all  in  Greek.  So  far 
he  has  some  advantage  over  Plato  ;  and,  if  he  writes 
chiefly  in  dialogue,  which  few  people  love  to  read  any 
more  than  novels  in  the  shape  of  letters,  that  is  a  crime 

common  to  both.     So  that  he  has  the  d 1's  luck 

and  his  own,  all  Plato's  chances,  and  one  of  his  own 
beside  —  viz.  his  English.  Still,  it  is  no  use  counting 
chances ;  facts  are  the  thing.  And  printing-presses, 
whether  of  Europe  or  of  England,  bear  witness  that 
neither  Plato  nor  Landor  is  a  marketable  commodity. 


246  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

In  fact,  these  two  men  resemble  each  other  in  more 
particulars  than  it  is  at  present  necessary  to  say. 
Especially  they  were  both  inclined  to  be  luxurious : 
both  had  a  hankering  after  purple  and  fine  linen ; 
both  hated  '  filthy  dowlas '  with  the  hatred  of  FalstaflF, 
whether  in  appareling  themselves  or  their  diction ;  and 
both  bestowed  pains  as  elaborate  upon  the  secret  art 
of  a  dialogue,  as  a  lapidary  would  upon  the  cutting  of 
a  sultan's  rubies. 

But  might  not  a  man  build  a  reputation  on  the  basis 
of  not  being  read  ?  To  be  read  is  undoubtedly  some 
thing  :  to  be  read  by  an  odd  million  or  so,  is  a  sort  of 
feather  in  a  man's  cap  ;  but  it  is  also  a  distinction  that 
he  has  been  read  absolutely  by  nobody  at  all.  There 
have  been  cases,  and  one  or  two  in  modern  times, 
where  an  author  could  point  to  a  vast  array  of  his  own 
works,  concerning  which  no  evidence  existed  that  so 
much  as  one  had  been  opened  by  human  hand,  or 
glanced  at  by  human  eye.  That  was  awful :  such  a 
sleep  of  pages  by  thousands  in  one  eternal  darkness, 
never  to  be  visited  by  light ;  such  a  rare  immunity 
from  the  villanies  of  misconstruction ;  such  a  Sabbath 
from  the  impertinencies  of  critics  !  You  shuddered 
to  reflect  that,  for  anything  known  to  the  contrary, 
there  might  lurk  jewels  of  truth  explored  in  vain,  or 
treasure  for  ever  intercepted  to  the  interests  of  man. 
But  such  a  sublimity  supposes  total  defect  of  readers  ; 
whereas  it  can  be  proved  against  Mr.  Landor,  that  he 
has  been  read  by  at  least  a  score  of  people,  all  wide 
awake  ;  and  if  any  treason  is  buried  in  a  page  of  his, 
thank  Heaven,  by  this  time  it  must  have  been  found 
out  and  reported  to  the  authorities.  So  that  neither 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  247 

can  Landor  plead  the  unlimited  popularity  of  a  novel 
ist,  aided  by  the  interest  of  a  tale,  and  by  an  artist, 
nor  the  total  obscuration  of  a  German  metaphysician. 
Neither  do  mobs  read  him,  as  they  do  M.  Sue  ;  nor  do 
all  men  turn  away  their  eyes  from  him,  as  they  do 
from  Hegel.3 

This,  however,  is  true  only  of  Mr.  Landor's  prose 
works.  His  first  work  was  a  poem,  viz.  Gebir;  and 
it  had  the  sublime  distinction,  for  some  time,  of  having 
enjoyed  only  two  readers ;  which  two  were  Southey 
and  myself.  It  was  on  first  entering  at  Oxford  that  I 
found  'Gebir'  printed  and  (nominally)  published; 
whereas,  in  fact,  all  its  advertisements  of  birth  and 
continued  existence,  were  but  so  many  notifications  of 
its  intense  privacy.  Not  knowing  Southey  at  that 
time,  I  vainly  conceited  myself  to  be  the  one  sole  pur 
chaser  and  reader  of  this  poem.  I  even  fancied 
myself  to  have  been  pointed  out  in  the  streets  of 
Oxford,  where  the  Landors  had  been  well  known  in 
times  preceding  my  own,  as  the  one  inexplicable  man 
authentically  known  to  possess  '  Gebir,'  or  even  (it 
might  be  whispered  mysteriously)  to  have  read  '  Ge 
bir.'  It  was  not  clear  but  this  reputation  might  stand 
in  lieu  of  any  independent  fame,  and  might  raise 
me  to  literary  distinction.  The  preceding  generation 
had  greatly  esteemed  the  man  called  ' Single- Speech 
Hamilton  ; '  not  at  all  for  the  speech  (which,  though 
good,  very  few  people  had  read,)  but  entirely  for  the 
supposed  fact  that  he  had  exhausted  himself  in  that 
one  speech,  and  had  become  physically  incapable  of 
making  a  second  :  so  that  afterwards,  when  he  really 
did  make  a  second,  everybody  was  incredulous  ;  until, 


248  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

the  thing  being  past  denial,  naturally  the  world  was 
disgusted,  and  most  people  dropped  his  acquaintance. 
To  be  a  Mono-Gebirist  was  quite  as  good  a  title  to 
notoriety  ;  and  five  years  after,  when  I  found  that  I 
had  '  a  brother  near  the  throne,'  viz.  Southey,  morti 
fication  would  have  led  me  willingly  to  resign  alto 
gether  in  his  favor.  Shall  I  make  the  reader  acquainted 
with  the  story  of  Gebir  ? 

Gebir  is  the  king  of  Gibraltar ;  which,  however,  it 
would  be  an  anachronism  to  call  Gibraltar,  since  it 
drew, that  name  from  this  very  Gebir  ;  and  doubtless, 
by  way  of  honor  to  his  memory.  Mussulmans  tell  a 
different  story :  but  who  cares  for  what  is  said  by 
infidel  dogs  ?  King,  then,  let  us  call  him  of  Calpe  ; 
and  a  very  good  king  he  is ;  young,  brave,  of  upright 
intentions ;  but  being  also  warlike,  and  inflamed  by 
popular  remembrances  of  ancient  wrongs,  he  resolves 
to  seek  reparation  from  the  children's  children  of  the 
wrong-doers  ;  and  he  weighs  anchor  in  search  of  Mr. 
Pitt's  '  indemnity  for  the  past,'  though  not  much  re 
garding  that  right  honorable  gentleman's  4  security  for 
the  future.'  Egypt  was  the  land  that  sheltered  the 
wretches  that  represented  the  ancestors  that  had  done 
the  wrong.  To  Egypt,  therefore,  does  king  Gebir 
steer  his  expedition,  which  counted  ten  thousand 
picked  men  : 


Incenst 


By  meditating  on  primeval  wrongs, 

He  blew  his  battle-horn  ;  at  which  uprose 

Whole  nations  :  here  ten  thousand  of  most  might 

He  called  aloud  ;  and  soon  Charoba  saw 

His  dark  helm  hover  o'er  the  land  of  Nile.' 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  249 

Who  is  Charoba  ?  As  respects  the  reader,  she  is  the 
heroine  of  the  poem  :  as  respects  Egypt,  she  is  queen 
by  the  grace  of  God,  defender  of  the  faith,  and  so 
forth.  Young  and  accustomed  to  unlimited  obedience, 
how  could  she  be  otherwise  than  alarmed  by  the 
descent  of  a  host  far  more  martial  than  her  own  effemi 
nate  people,  and  assuming  a  religious  character  — 
avengers  of  wrong  in  some  forgotten  age  ?  In  her 
trepidation,  she  turns  for  aid  and  counsel  to  her  nurse 
Dalica.  Dalica,  by  the  way,  considered  as  a  word,  is 
a  dactyle ;  that  is,  you  must  not  lay  the  accent  on-  the 
i,  but  on  the  first  syllable.  Dalica,  considered  as  a 
woman,  is  about  as  bad  a  one  as  even  Egypt  could 
furnish.  She  is  a  thorough  gipsy ;  a  fortune-teller, 
and  something  worse,  in  fact.  She  is  a  sorceress, 
*  stiff  in  opinion  : '  and  it  needs  not  Pope's  authority  to 

infer  that of  course  she  '  is  always  in  the  wrong.' 

By  her  advice,  but  for  a  purpose  known  best  to  herself, 
an  interview  is  arranged  between  Charoba  and  the 
invading  monarch.  At  this  interview,  the  two  youth 
ful  sovereigns,  Charoba  the  queen  of  hearts  and  Gebir 
the  king  of  clubs,  fall  irrevocably  in  love  with  each 
other.  There's  an  end  of  club  law  :  and  Gebir  is  ever 
afterwards  disarmed.  But  Dalica,  that  wicked  Dalica, 
that  sad  old  dactyle,  who  sees  everything  clearly  that 
happens  to  be  twenty  years  distant,  cannot  see  a  pike 
staff  if  it  is  close  before  her  nose  ;  and  of  course  she 
mistakes  Charoba's  agitations  of  love  for  paroxysms  of 
anger.  Charoba  is  herself  partly  to  blame  for  this  ; 
but  you  must  excuse  her.  The  poor  child  readily 
confided  her  terrors  to  Dalica ;  but  how  can  she  be 
expected  to  make  a  love  confidante  of  a  tawny  old 


250  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

witch  like  her  ?  Upon  this  mistake,  however,  proceeds 
the  whole  remaining  plot.  Dr.  Dalica  (which  means 
doctor  D.,  and  by  no  means  dear  D.,)  having  totally 
mistaken  the  symptoms,  the  diagnosis,  the  prognosis, 
and  everything  that  ends  in  osis,  necessarily  mistakes 
also  the  treatment  of  the  case,  and,  like  some  other 
doctors,  failing  to  make  a  cure,  covers  up  her  blunders 
by  a  general  slaughter.  She  visits  her  sister,  a  sor 
ceress  more  potent  than  herself,  living 

1  Deep  in  the  wilderness  of  woe,  Masar.' 

Between  them  they  concert  hellish  incantations.  From 
these  issues  a  venomous  robe,  like  that  of  the  centaur 
Nessus.  This,  at  a  festal  meeting  between  the  two 
nations  and  their  princes,  is  given  by  Charoba  to  her 
lover  —  her  lover,  but  as  yet  not  recognised  as  such  by 
Aer,  nor  until  the  moment  of  his  death,  avowed  as  such 
by  himself.  Gebir  dies  —  the  accursed  robe,  dipped 
in  the  '  viscous  poison  '  exuding  from  the  gums  of  the 
grey  cerastes,  and  tempered  by  other  venomous  juices 
of  plant  and  animal,  proves  too  much  for  his  rocky 
constitution  —  Gibraltar  is  found  not  impregnable  — 
the  blunders  of  Dalica,  the  wicked  nurse,  and  the  arts 
of  her  sister  Myrthyr,  the  wicked  witch,  arc  found  too 
potent ;  and  in  one  moment  the  union  of  two  nations, 
with  the  happiness  of  two  sovereigns,  is  wrecked  for 
ever.  The  closing  situation  of  the  parties  —  monarch 
and  monarch,  nation  and  nation,  youthful  king  and 
youthful  queen,  dying  or  despairing  —  nation  and 
nation  that  had  been  reconciled,  starting  asunder  once 
again  amidst  festival  and  flowers  —  these  objects  are 
scenically  effective.  The  conception  of  the  grouping 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  251 

is  good  ;  the  mise  en  scene  is  good ;  but,  from  want  of 
pains-taking,  not  sufficiently  brought  out  into  strong 
relief;  and  the  dying  words  of  Gebir,  which  wind  up 
the  whole,  are  too  bookish  ;  they  seem  to  be  part  of 
some  article  which  he  had  been  writing  for  the  Gib 
raltar  Quarterly. 

There  are  two  episodes,  composing  jointly  about 
two-sevenths  of  the  poem,  and  by  no  means  its  weak 
est  parts.  One  describes  the  descent  of  Gebir  to 
Hades.  His  guide  is  a  man  —  who  is  this  man  ? 

*  Living  —  they  called  him  Aroar.' 

Is  he  not  living,  then?  No.  Is  he  dead,  then  ?  No, 
nor  dead  either.  Poor  Aroar  cannot  l|ve,  and  cannot 
die  —  so  that  he  is  in  an  almighty  fix.  In  this  dis 
agreeable  dilemma,  he  contrives  to  amuse  himself 
with  politics  —  and,  rather  of  a  Jacobinical  cast:  like 
the  Virgilian  /Eneas,  Gebir  is  introduced  not  to  the 
shades  of  the  past  only,  but  of  the  future.  He  sees 
the  pre-existing  ghosts  of  gentlemen  who  are  yet  to 
come,  silent  as  ghosts  ought  to  be,  but  destined  at  some 
far  distant  time  to  make  a  considerable  noise  in  our 
upper  world.  Amongst  these  is  our  worthy  old  George 
III.,  who  (strange  to  say  !)  is  not  foreseen  as  galloping 
from  Windsor  to  Kew,  surrounded  by  an  escort  of 
dragoons,  nor  in  a  scarlet  coat  riding  after  a  fox,  nor 
taking  his  morning  rounds  amongst  his  sheep  and  his 
turnips ;  but  in  the  likeness  of  some  savage  creature, 
whom  really,  were  it  not  for  his  eyebrows  and  his 
'slanting''  forehead,  the  reader  would  never  recog 
nise  : 


252  NOTES    ON    WALTER   SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

'  Aroar !  what  wretch  that  nearest  us  ?  what  wretch 
Is  that,  with  eyebrows  white  and  slanting  brow  ? 

—  0  king ! 

Iberia  bore  him  ;  but  the  breed  accurst 
Inclement  winds  blew  blighting  from  north-east.' 

Iberia  is  spiritual  England  ;  and  north-east  is  mystical 
Hanover.  But  what,  then,  were  the  '  wretch's'  crimes  ? 
The  white  eyebrows  I  confess  to  ;  those  were  cer 
tainly  crimes  of  considerable  magnitude  :  but  what 
else  ?  Gebir  has  the  same  curiosity  as  myself,  and 
propounds  something  like  the  same  fishing  question  : 

*  He  was  a  warrior  then,  nor  feared  the  gods  ? ' 
To  which  Aroar  answers  — 

'  Gebir  !  he  feared  the  demons,  not  the  gods  ; 
Though  them,  indeed,  his  daily  face  ador'd, 
And  was  no  warrior  ;  yet  the  thousand  lives 
Squander'd  as  if  to  exercise  a  sling,  &c.  &c.' 

Really  Aroar  is  too  Tom-Painish,  and  seems  up  to  a 
little  treason.  He  makes  the  poor  king  answerable 
for  more  than  his  own  share  of  national  offences,  if 
such  they  were.  All  of  us  in  the  last  generation  were 
rather  fond  of  fighting  and  assisting  at  fights  in  the 
character  of  mere  spectators.  I  am  sure  /  was.  But 
if  that  is  any  fault,  so  was  Plato,  who  (though  probably 
inferior  as  a  philosopher  to  you  and  me,  reader,)  was 
much  superior  to  either  of  us  as  a  cock-fighter.  So 
was  Socrates  in  the  preceding  age  ;  for,  as  he  notori 
ously  haunted  the  company  of  Alcibiades  at  all  hours, 
he  must  often  have  found  his  pupil  diverting  himself 
with  these  fighting  quails  which  he  kept  in  such 
numbers.  Be  assured  that  the  oracle's  '  wisest  of 


NOTES    ON    WALTER   SAVAGE   LANDOR.  253 

men '  lent  a  hand  very  cheerfully  to  putting  on  the 
spurs  when  a  main  was  to  be  fought ;  and,  as  to  bet 
ting,  probably  that  was  the  reason  that  Xantippe  was 
so  often  down  upon  him  when  he  went  home  at  night. 
To  come  home  reeling  from  a  fight,  without  a  drachma 
left  in  his  pocket,  would  naturally  provoke  any  woman. 
Posterity  has  been  very  much  misinformed  about  these 
things  ;  and,  no  doubt,  about  Xantippe,  poor  woman, 
in  particular.  If  she  had  had  a  disciple  to  write  books, 
as  her  cock-fighting  husband  had,  perhaps  we  should 
have  read  a  very  different  story.  By  the  way,  the 
propensity  to  scandalum  magnatum  in  Aroar  was  one 
of  the  things  that  fixed  my  youthful  attention,  and 
perhaps  my  admiration,  upon  Gebir.  For  myself,  as 
perhaps  the  reader  may  have  heard,  I  was  and  am  a 
Tory ;  and  in  some  remote  geological  sera,  my  bones 
may  be  dug  up  by  some  future  Buckland  as  a  specimen 
of  the  fossil  Tory.  Yet,  for  all  that,  I  loved  audacity  ; 
and  I  gazed  with  some  indefinite  shade  of  approbation 
upon  a  poet  whom  the  attorney-general  might  have 
occasion  to  speak  with. 

This,  however,  was  a  mere  condiment  to  the  main 
attraction  of  the  poem.  That  lay  in  the  picturesque- 
ness  of  the  images,  attitudes,  groups,  dispersed  every 
where.  The  eye  seemed  to  rest  everywhere  upon 
festal  processions,  upon  the  panels  of  Theban  gates, 
i  or  upon  sculptured  vases.  The  very  first  lines  that  by 
accident  met  my  eye,  were  those  which  follow.  I  cite 
them  in  mere  obedience  to  the  fact  as  it  really  was  ; 
else  there  are  more  striking  illustrations  of  this  sculp 
turesque  faculty  in  Mr.  Landor  ;  and  for  this  faculty 
it  was  that  both  Southey  and  myself  separately  and 


254  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

independently  had  named   him  the  English  Valerius 
Flaccus. 

GEBIR  ON  REPAIRING  TO  HIS  FIRST  INTERVIEW  WITH 
CHAROBA. 

'  But  Gebir,  when  he  heard  of  her  approach, 
Laid  by  his  orbed  shield  :  his  vizor  helm, 
His  buckler  and  his  corslet  he  laid  by, 
And  bade  that  none  attend  him  :  at  his  side 
Two  faithful  dogs  that  urge  the  silent  course, 
Shaggy,  deep-chested,  croucht;  the  crocodile, 
Crying,  oft  made  them  raise  their  flaccid  ears, 
And  push  their  heads  within  their  master's  hand. 
There  was  a  lightning  paleness  in  his  face, 
Such  as  Diana  rising  o'er  the  rocks 
Shower'd  on  the  lonely  Latmian  ;  on  his  brow 
Sorrow  there  was,  but  there  was  nought  severe.' 

'  And  the  long  moonbeam  on  the  hard  wet  sand 
Lay  like  a  jasper  column  half  up-reared.' 

'  The  king,  who  sate  before  his  tent,  descried 
The  dust  rise  redden' d  from  the  setting  sun.' 

Now  let  us  pass  to  the  imaginary  dialogues  :  — 
Marshal  Bugeaud  and  Arab  Chieftain.  —  This 
dialogue,  which  is  amongst  the  shortest,  would  not 
challenge  a  separate  notice,  were  it  not  for  the  fresh 
ness  in  the  public  mind,  and  the  yet  uncicatrized 
rawness  of  that  atrocity  which  it  commemorates. 
Here  is  an  official  account  from  the  commander-in- 
chief  :  —  l  Of  seven  hundred  refractory  and  rebel 
lious  who  took  refuge  in  the  caravans,  thirty,'  [says 
the  glory-hunting  Marshal],  '  and  thirty  only,  are 
alive  ;  and  of  these  thirty  there  are  four  only  who  are 
capable  of  labor,  or  indeed  of  motion.'  How  precious 
to  the  Marshal's  heart  must  be  that  harvest  of  misery 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  255 

from  which  he  so  reluctantly  allows  the  discount  of 
about  one-half  per  cent.  Four  only  out  of  seven  hun 
dred,  he  is  happy  to  assure  Christendom,  remain  capa 
ble  of  hopping  about ;  as  to  working,  or  getting  honest 
bread,  or  doing  any  service  in  this  world  to  themselves 
or  others,  it  is  truly  delightful  to  announce,  for  public 
information,  that  all  such  practices  are  put  a  stop  to 
for  ever. 

Amongst  the  fortunate  four,  who  retain  the  power 
of  hopping,  we  must  reckon  the  Arab  Chieftain,  who 
is  introduced  into  the  colloquy  in  the  character  of 
respondent.  He  can  hop,  of  course,  ex  hypothesi, 
being  one  of  the  ever  lucky  quaternion  ;  he  can  hop  a 
little  also  as  a  rhetorician  ;  indeed,  as  to  that  he  is  too 
much  for  the  Marshal ;  but  on  the  other  hand  he  can 
not  see  ;  the  cave  has  cured  him  of  any  such  imperti 
nence  as  staring  into  other  people's  faces  ;  he  is  also 
lame,  the  cave  has  shown  him  the  absurdity  of  ram 
bling  about  ;  —  and,  finally,  he  is  a  beggar  ;  or,  if  he 
will  not  allow  himself  to  be  called  by  that  name,  upon 
the  argument  [which  seems  plausible]  that  he  cannot 
be  a  beggar  if  he  never  begs,  it  is  not  the  less  certain 
that,  in  case  of  betting  a  sixpence,  the  chieftain  would 
find  it  inconvenient  to  stake  the  cash. 

The  Marshal,  who  apparently  does  not  pique  him- 
sef  upon  politeness,  addresses  the  Arab  by  the  follow 
ing  assortment  of  names  —  *  Thief,  assassin,  traitor! 
blind  greybeard  !  lame  beggar ! '  The  three  first 
titles  being  probably  mistaken  for  compliments,  the 
Arab  pockets  in  silence  ;  but  to  the  double-barrelled 
discharges  of  the  two  last  he  replies  thus  :  — 4  Cease 
there.  Thou  canst  never  make  me  beg  for  bread,  for 


256  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

water,  or  for  life  ;  my  grey  beard  is  from  God  ;  my 
blindness  and  lameness  are  from  thee.'  This  is  a 
pleasant  way  of  doing  business ;  rarely  does  one  find 
little  accounts  so  expeditiously  settled  and  receipted. 
Beggar  ?  But  how  if  I  do  not  beg  ?  Greybeard  ? 
Put  that  down  to  the  account  of  God.  Cripple  ?  Put 
that  down  to  your  own.  Getting  sulky  under  this 
mode  of  fencing  from  the  desert-born,  the  Marshal 
invites  him  to  enter  one  of  his  new-made  law  courts, 
where  he  will  hear  of  something  probably  not  to  his 
advantage.  Our  Arab  friend,  however,  is  no  con 
noisseur  in  courts  of  law:  small  wale4  of  courts  in 
the  desert ;  he  does  not  so  much  '  do  himself  the  honor 
to  decline '  as  he  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  this  proposal,  and 
on  his  part  presents  a  little  counter  invitation  to  the 
Marshal  for  a  pic-nic  party  to  the  caves  of  Dahra. 
'Enter'  (says  the  unsparing  Sheik)  'and  sing  and 
whistle  in  the  cavern  where  the  bones  of  brave  men 
are  never  to  bleach,  are  never  to  decay.  Go,  where 
the  mother  and  infant  are  inseparable  for  ever  —  one 
mass  of  charcoal ;  the  breasts  that  gave  life,  the  lips 
that  received  it  —  all,  all,  save  only  where  two  arms, 
in  color  and  hardness  like  corroded  iron,  cling  round 
a  brittle  stem,  shrunken,  warped,  and  where  two  heads 
are  calcined.  Even  this  massacre,  no  doubt,  will  find 
defenders  in  your  country,  for  it  is  the  custom  of  your 
country,  to  cover  blood  with  lies,  and  lies  with  blood.' 
'And  (says  the  facetious  French  Marshal)  here  and 
there  a  sprinkling  of  ashes  over  both.'  ARAB.  '  Ending 
in  merriment,  as  befits  ye.  But  is  it  ended  ? '  But 
is  it  ended  ?  Aye  ;  the  wilderness  beyond  Algiers 
returns  an  echo  to  those  ominous  words. of  the  blind 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  257 

and  mutilated  chieftain.  No,  brave  Arab,  although 
the  Marshal  scoffingly  rejoins  that  at  least  it  is  ended 
for  yow,  ended  it  is  not ;  for  the  great  quarrel  by  which 
human  nature  pleads  with  such  a  fiendish  spirit  of 
warfare,  carried  on  under  the  countenance  of  him  who 
stands  first  in  authority  under  the  nation  that  stands 
second  in  authority  amongst  the  leaders  of  civiliza 
tion ; —  quarrel  of  that  sort,  once  arising,  does  not 
go  to  sleep  again  until  it  is  righted  for  ever.  As  the 
English  martyr  at  Oxford  said  to  his  fellow  martyr  — 
4  Brother,  be  of  good  cheer,  for  we  shall  this  day  light 
up  a  fire  in  England  that,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  can 
not  be  extinguished  for  ever,'  —  even  so  the  atrocities 
of  these  hybrid  campaigns  between  baffled  civiliza 
tion  and  barbarism,  provoked  into  frenzy,  will,  like 
the  horrors  of  the  middle  passage  rising  up  from  the 
Atlantic  deep,  suddenly,  at  the  bar  of  the  British 
senate,  sooner  or  later  reproduce  themselves,  in  strong 
reactions  of  the  social  mind  throughout  Christendom, 
upon  all  the  horrors  of  war  that  are  wilful  and  super 
fluous.  In  that  case  there  will  be  a  consolation  in 
reserve  for  the  compatriots  of  those,  the  brave  men, 
the  women,  and  the  innocent  children,  who  died  in 
that  fiery  furnace  at  Dahra. 

*  Their  moans 

The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 
To  heaven.'  5 

The  caves  of  Dahra  repeated  the  woe  to  the  hills, 
and  the  hills  to  God.  But  such  a  furnace,  though 
fierce,  may  be  viewed  as  brief  indeed  if  it  shall  ter 
minate  in  permanently  pointing  the  wrath  of  nations, 
17 


258  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

(as  in  this  dialogue  it  has  pointed  the  wrath  of  genius,) 
to  the  particular  outrage  and  class  of  outrages  which 
it  concerns.  The  wrath  of  nations  is  a  consuming 
wrath,  and  the  scorn  of  intellect  is  a  withering  scorn, 
for  all  abuses  upon  which  either  one  or  the  other  is 
led,  by  strength  of  circumstances,  to  settle  itself  sys 
tematically.  The  danger  is  for  the  most  part  that  the 
very  violence  of  public  feeling  should  rock  it  asleep 
—  the  tempest  exhausts  itself  by  its  own  excesses  — 
and  the  thunder  of  one  or  two  immediate  explosions, 
by  satisfying  the  first  clamors  of  human  justice  and 
indignation,  is  too  apt  to  intercept  that  sustained  roll  of 
artillery  which  is  requisite  for  the  effectual  assault  of 
long  established  abuses.  Luckily  in  the  present  case 
of  the  Dahra  massacre  there  is  the  less  danger  of  such 
a  result,  as  the  bloody  scene  has  happened  to  fall 
in  with  a  very  awakened  state  of  the  public  sensibility 
as  to  the  evils  of  war  generally,  and  with  a  state  of 
expectation  almost  romantically  excited  as  to  the  possi 
bility  of  readily  or  soon  exterminating  these  evils. 

Hope  meantime,  even  if  unreasonable,  becomes 
wise  and  holy  when  it  points  along  a  path  of  purposes 
that  are  more  than  usually  beneficent.  •  According  to 
a  fine  illustration  of  Sir  Phillip  Sidney's,  drawn  from 
the  practice  of  archery,  by  attempting  more  than  we 
can  possibly  accomplish,  we  shall  yet  reach  farther 
than  ever  we  should  have  reached  with  a  less  ambitious 
aim  ;  we  shall  do  much  for  the  purification  of  war,  if 
nothing  at  all  for  its  abolition ;  and  atrocities  of  this 
Algerine  order  are  amongst  the  earliest  that  will  give 
way.  They  will  sink  before  the  growing  illumination, 
and  (what  is  equally  important)  before  the  growing 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  259 

combination  of  minds  acting  simultaneously  from  vari 
ous  centres,  in  nations  otherwise  the  most  at  variance. 
By  a  rate  of  motion  continually  accelerated,  the  gath 
ering  power  of  the  press,  falling  in  with  the  growing 
facilities  of  personal  intercourse,  is,  day  by  day,  bring 
ing  Europe  more  and  more  into  a  state  of  fusion,  in 
which  the  sublime  name  of  Christendom  will  contin 
ually  become  more  and  more  significant,  and  will 
express  a  unity  of  the  most  awful  order,  viz.,  in  the 
midst  of  strife,  long  surviving  as  to  inferior  interests 
and  subordinate  opinions,  will  express  an  agreement 
continually  more  close,  and  an  agreement  continually 
more  operative,  upon  all  capital  questions  affecting 
human  rights,  duties,  and  the  interests  of  human  pro 
gress.  Before  that  tribunal,  which  every  throb  of 
every  steam  engine,  in  printing  houses  and  on  railroads, 
is  hurrying  to  establish,  all  flagrant  abuses  of  bellige 
rent  powers  will  fall  prostrate  ;  and,  in  particular,  no 
form  of  pure  undisguised  murder  will  be  any  longer 
allowed  to  confound  itself  with  the  necessities  of  hon 
orable  warfare. 

Much  already  has  been  accomplished  on  this  path  ; 
more  than  people  are  aware  of;  so  gradual  and  silent 
has  been  the  advance.  How  noiseless  is  the  growth 
of  com  !  Watch  it  night  and  day  for  a  week,  and  you 
will  never  see  it  growing;  but  return  after  two  months, 
and  you  will  find  it  all  whitening  for  the  harvest.  Such, 
and  so  imperceptible,  in  the  stages  of  their  motion,  are 
the  victories  of  the  press.  Here  is  one  instance.  Just 
forty-seven  years  ago,  on  the  shores  of  Syria,  was 
celebrated  by  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  the  most  damnable 
carnival  of  murder  that  romance  has  fabled,  or  that 


260  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

history  has  recorded.  Rather  more  than  four  thousand 
men  —  not,  (like  Tyrolese  or  Spanish  guerillas,)  even 
in  pretence,  '  insurgent  rustics,'  but  regular  troops, 
serving  the  Pacha  and  the  Ottoman  Sultan,  not  old  men 
that  might  by  odd  fractions  have  been  thankful  for 
dismissal  from  a  life  of  care  or  sorrow,  but  all  young 
Albanians,  in  the  early  morning  of  manhood,  the  oldest 
not  twenty-four  —  were  exterminated  by  successive 
rolls  of  musketry,  when  helpless  as  infants,  having 
their  arms  pinioned  behind  their  backs  like  felons  on 
the  scaffold,  and  having  surrendered  their  muskets, 
(which  else  would  have  made  so  desperate  a  resist- 
tance,)  on  the  faith  that  they  were  dealing  with  soldiers 
and  men  of  honor.  I  have  elsewhere  examined,  as  a 
question  in  casuistry,  the  frivolous  pretences  for  this 
infamous  carnage,  but  that  examination  I  have  here  no 
wish  to  repeat ;  for  it  would  draw  off  the  attention 
from  one  feature  of  the  case,  which  I  desire  to  bring 
before  the  reader,  as  giving  to  this  Jaffa  tragedy  a 
depth  of  atrocity  wanting  in  that  of  Dahra.  The  four 
thousand  and  odd  young  Albanians  had  been  seduced, 
trepanned,  fraudulently  decoyed,  from  a  post  of  con 
siderable  strength,  in  which  they  could  and  would  have 
sold  their  lives  at  a  bloody  rate,  by  a  solemn  promise 
of  safety  from  authorized  French  officers.  '  But,' 
said  Napoleon,  in  part  of  excuse,  '  these  men,  my 
aides-de-camp,  were  poltroons  :  to  save  their  own  lives, 
they  made  promises  which  they  ought  not  to  have 
made.'  Suppose  it  so ;  and  suppose  the  case  one  in 
which  the  supreme  authority  has  a  right  to  disavow  his 
agents;  what  then?  This  entitles  that  authority  to 
refuse  his  ratification  to  the  terms  agreed  on  ;  but  this, 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  261 

at  the  same  time,  obliges  him  to  replace  the  hostile 
parties  in  the  advantages  from  which  his  agents  had 
wiled  them  by  these  terms.  A  robber,  who  even  owns 
himself  such,  will  not  pretend  that  he  may  refuse  the 
price  of  the  jewel  as  exorbitant,  and  yet  keep  pos 
session  of  the  jewel.  And  next  comes  a  fraudulent 
advantage,  not  obtained  by  a  knavery  in  the  aid-de 
camp,  but  in  the  leader  himself.  The  surrender  of  the 
weapons,  and  the  submission  to  the  fettering  of  the 
arms,  were  not  concessions  from  the  Albanians,  filched 
by  the  representatives  of  Napoleon,  acting  (as  he 
says)  without  orders,  but  by  express  falsehoods,  ema 
nating  from  himself.  The  officer  commanding  at 
Dahra  could  not  have  reached  his  enemy  without  the 
shocking  resource  which  he  employed :  Napoleon 
could.  The  officer  at  Dahra  violated  no  covenant : 
Napoleon  did.  The  officer  at  Dahra  had  not  by  lies 
seduced  his  victims  from  their  natural  advantages : 
Napoleon  had.  Such  was  the  atrocity  of  Jaffa  in  the 
year  1799.  Now,  the  relation  of  that  great  carnage 
to  the  press,  the  secret  argument  through  which  that 
vast  massacre  connects  itself  with  the  progress  of  the 
press,  is  this  —  That  in  1799,  and  the  two  following 
years,  when  most  it  had  become  important  to  search 
the  character  and  acts  of  Napoleon,  excepting  Sir 
Robert  Wilson,  no  writer  in  Europe,  no  section  of  the 
press,  cared  much  to  insist  upon  this,  by  so  many 
degrees,  the  worst  deed-  of  modern6  military  life. 
From  that  deed  all  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  would 
not  have  cleansed  him ;  and  yet,  since  1804,  we  have 
heard  much  oftener  of  the  sick  men  whom  he  poisoned 
in  his  Syrian  hospital,  (an  act  of  merely  erroneous 


262  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

humanity,)  and  more  of  the  Due  d'Enghien's  execu 
tion  than  of  either  ;  though  this,  savage  as  it  was, 
admits  of  such  palliations  as  belong  to  doubtful  pro 
vocations  in  the  sufferer,  and  to  extreme  personal  terror 
in  the  inflicter.  Here  then,  we  have  a  case  of  whole 
sale  military  murder,  emanating  from  Christendom, 
and  not  less  treacherous  than  the  worst  which  have 
been  ascribed  to  the  Mahometan  Timur,  or  even  to  any 
Hindoo  Rajah,  which  hardly  moved  a  vibration  of 
anger,  or  a  solitary  outcry  of  protestation  from  the 
European  press,  (then,  perhaps,  having  the  excuse  of 
deadly  fear  for  herself,)  or  even  from  the  press  of 
moral  England,  having  no  such  excuse.  Fifty  years 
have  passed  ;  a  less  enormity  is  perpetrated,  but  again 
by  a  French  leader  :  and,  behold  !  Europe  is  now  con 
vulsed  from  side  to  side  by  unaffected  indignation  !  So 
travels  the  press  to  victory :  such  is  the  light,  and  so 
broad,  which  it  diffuses  :  such  is  the  strength  for  action 
by  which  it  combines  the  hearts  of  nations. 

MELANCTHON    AND   CALVIN. 

Of  Mr.  Landor's  notions  in  religion  it  would  be  use 
less,  and  without  polemic  arguments  it  would  be  arro 
gant,  to  say  that  they  are  false.  It  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  they  are  degrading.  In  the  dialogue  between 
Melancthon  and  Calvin,  it  is  clear  that  the  former  rep 
resents  Mr.  L.  himself,  and  is  not  at  all  the  Melancthon 
whom  we  may  gather  from  his  writings.  Mr.  Landor 
has  heard  that  he  was  gentle  and  timid  in  action ;  and 
he  exhibits  him  as  a  mere  development  of  that  key 
note  ;  as  a  compromiser  of  all  that  is  severe  in  doc 
trine  ;  and  as  an  effeminate  picker  and  chooser  in 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  263 

morals.  God,  in  his  conception  of  him,  is  not  a  father 
so  much  as  a  benign,  but  somewhat  weak,  old  grand 
father  ;  and  we,  his  grandchildren,  being  now  and  then 
rather  naughty,  are  to  be  tickled  with  a  rod  made  of 
feathers,  but,  upon  the  whole,  may  rely  upon  an  eter 
nity  of  sugar-plums.  For  instance,  take  the  puny  idea 
ascribed  to  Melancthon  upon  Idolatry ;  and  consider, 
for  one  moment,  how  little  it  corresponds  to  the  vast 
machinery  reared  up  by  God  himself  against  this 
secret  poison  and  dreadful  temptation  of  human  na 
ture.  Melancthon  cannot  mean  to  question  the  truth 
or  the  importance  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  yet,  if 
his  view  of  idolatry  (as  reported  by  L.)  be  sound,  the 
Bible  must  have  been  at  the  root  of  the  worst  mischief 
ever  yet  produced  by  idolatry.  He  begins  by  de 
scribing  idolatry  as  '•Jewish;'1  insinuating  that  it  was 
an  irregularity  chiefly  besetting  the  Jews.  But  how 
perverse  a  fancy !  In  the  Jews,  idolatry  was  a  dis 
ease  ;  in  Pagan  nations,  it  was  the  normal  state.  In  a 
nation  (if  any  such  nation  could  exist)  of  cretins  or  of 
lepers,  nobody  would  talk  of  cretinism  or  leprosy  as 
of  any  morbid  affection  ;  that  would  be  the  regular 
and  natural  condition  of  man.  But  where  either  was 
spoken  of  with  horror  as  a  ruinous  taint  in  human  flesh, 
it  would  argue  that  naturally  (and,  perhaps,  by  a  large 
majority)  the  people  were  uninfected.  Amongst  Pa 
gans,  nobody  talked  of  idolatry  —  no  such  idea  existed 
—  because  that  was  the  regular  form  of  religious  wor 
ship.  To  be  named  at  all,  idolatry  must  be  viewed  as 
standing  in  opposition  to  some  higher  worship  that  is 
not  idolatry.  But,  next,  as  we  are  all  agreed  that  in 
idolatry  there  is  something  evil,  and  differ  only  as  to 


264  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

the  propriety  of  considering  it  a  Jewish  evil  —  in  what 
does  this  evil  lie  ?  It  lies,  according  to  the  profound 
Landorian  Melancthon,  in  this  —  that  different  idolaters 
figure  the  Deity  under  different  forms  :  if  they  could 
all  agree  upon  one  and  the  same  mode  of  figuring  the 
invisible  Being,  there  need  be  no  quarrelling  ;  and  in 
this  case,  consequently,  there  would  be  no  harm  in 
idolatry  —  none  whatever.  But,  unhappily,  it  seems 
each  nation,  or  sometimes  section  of  a  nation,  has  a 
different  fancy  :  they  get  to  disputing ;  and  from  that 
they  get  to  boxing,  in  which,  it  is  argued,  lies  the  true 
evil  of  idolatry.  It  is  an  extra  cause  of  broken  heads. 
One  tribe  of  men  represent  the  Deity  as  a  beautiful 
young  man,  with  a  lyre  and  a  golden  bow  ;  another  as 
a  snake  ;  and  a  third  —  Egyptians,  for  instance,  of 
old  —  as  a  beetle  or  an  onion  ;  these  last,  according  to 
Juvenal's  remark,  having  the  happy  privilege  of  grow 
ing  their  own  gods  in  their  own  kitchen-gardens.  In 
all  this  there  would  be  no  harm,  were  it  not  for  subse 
quent  polemics  and  polemical  assaults.  Such,  if  we 
listen  to  Mr.  L.,  is  Melancthon's  profound  theory7  of 
a  false  idolatrous  religion.  Were  the  police  every 
where  on  an  English  footing,  and  the  magistrates  as 
unlike  as  possible  to  Turkish  Cadis,  nothing  could  be 
less  objectionable  ;  but,  as  things  are,  the  beetle- 
worshipper  despises  the  onion-worshipper  ;  which 
breeds  ill  blood  ;  whence  grows  a  cudgel ;  and  from 
the  cudgel  a  constable ;  and  from  the  constable  an 
unjust  magistrate.  Not  so,  Mr.  Landor ;  thus  did  not 
Melancthon  speak :  and  if  he  did,  and  would  defend 
it  for  a  thousand  times,  then  for  a  thousand  times  he 
would  deserve  to  be  trampled  by  posterity  into  that 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  2G5 

German  mire  which  he  sought  to  evade  by  his  Grecian 
disguise.8  The  true  evil  of  idolatry  is  this :  There  is 
one  sole  idea  of  God,  which  corresponds  adequately 
to  his  total  nature.  Of  this  idea,  two  things  may  be 
affirmed  :  the  first  being  —  that  it  is  at  the  root  of  all 
absolute  grandeur,  of  all  truth,  and  of  all  moral  per 
fection  ;  the  second  being  —  that,  natural  and  easy  as 
it  seems  when  once  unfolded,  it  could  only  have  been 
unfolded  by  revelation  ;  and,  to  all  eternity,  he  that 
started  with  a  false  conception  of  God,  could  not, 
through  any  effort  of  his  own,  have  exchanged  it  for  a 
true  one.  All  idolaters  alike,  though  not  all  in  equal 
degrees,  by  intercepting  the  idea  of  God  through  the 
prism  of  some  representative  creature  that  partially 
resembles  God,  refract,  splinter,  and  distort  that  idea. 
Even  the  idea  of  light,  of  the  pure,  solar  light  —  the  old 
Persian  symbol  of  God  —  has  that  depraving  neces 
sity.  Light  itself,  besides  being  an  imperfect  symbol, 
is  an  incarnation  for  us.  However  pure  itself,  or  in 
its  original  divine  manifestation,  for  us  it  is  incarnated 
in  forms  and  in  matter  that  are  not  pure  :  it  gravitates 
towards  physical  alliances,  and  therefore  towards  un- 
spiritual  pollutions.  And  all  experience  shows  that 
the  tendency  for  man,  left  to  his  own  imagination,  is 
downwards.  The  purest  symbol,  derived  from  created 
things,  can  and  will  condescend  to  the  grossness  of 
inferior  human  natures,  by  submitting  to  mirror  itself 
in  more  and  more  carnal  representative  symbols,  until 
finally  the  mixed  element  of  resemblance  to  God  is 
altogether  buried  and  lost.  God,  by  this  succession  of 
imperfect  interceptions,  falls  more  and  more  under  the 
taint  and  limitation  of  the  alien  elements  associated 


266  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

with  all  created  things;  and,  for  the  ruin  of  all  moral 
grandeur  in  man,  every  idolatrous  nation  left  to  itself 
will  gradually  bring  round  the  idea  of  God  into  the 
idea  of  a  powerful  demon.  Many  things  check  and 
disturb  this  tendency  for  a  time  ;  but  finally,  and  under 
that  intense  civilization  to  which  man  intellectually  is 
always  hurrying  under  the  eternal  evolution  of  physi 
cal  knowledge,  such  a  degradation  of  God's  idea, 
ruinous  to  the  moral  capacities  of  man,  would  un 
doubtedly  perfect  itself,  were  it  not  for  the  kindling  of 
a  purer  standard  by  revelation.  Idolatry,  therefore,  is 
not  merely  an  evil,  and  one  utterly  beyond  the  power 
of  social  institutions  to  redress,  but,  in  fact,  it  is  the 
fountain  of  all  other  evil  that  seriously  menaces  the 
destiny  of  the  human  race. 

PORSON    AND    SOUTHEY. 

The  two  dialogues  between  Southey  and  Porson 
relate  to  Wordsworth ;  and  they  connect  Mr.  Landor 
with  a  body  of  groundless  criticism,  for  which  vainly 
he  will  seek  to  evade  his  responsibility  by  pleading  the 
caution  posted  up  at  the  head  of  his  Conversations, 
viz.  —  'Avoid  a  mistake  in  attributing  to  the  writer 
any  opinions  in  this  book  but  what  are  spoken  under 
his  own  name.'  If  Porson,  therefore,  should  happen 
to  utter  villanies  that  are  indictable,  that  (you  are  to 
understand)  is  Person's  affair.  Render  unto  Landor 
the  eloquence  of  the  dialogue,  but  render  unto  Porson 
any  kicks  which  Porson  may  have  merited  by  his 
atrocities  against  a  man  whom  assuredly  he  never 
heard  of,  and  probably  never  saw.  Now,  unless 
Wordsworth  ran  into  Porson  in  the  streets  of  Cam- 


NOTES    OH    WALTER   SAVAGE    LANDOR.  267 

bridge  on  some  dark  night  about  the  era  of  the  French 
Revolution,  and  capsized  him  into  the  kennel  —  a 
thing  which  is  exceedingly  improbable,  considering 
that  Wordsworth  was  never  tipsy  except  once  in  his 
life,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  is  exceeding  probable, 
considering  that  Porson  was  very  seldom  otherwise  — 
barring  this  one  opening  for  a  collision,  there  is  no 
human  possibility  or  contingency  known  to  insurance 
offices,  through  which  Porson  ever  could  have  been 
brought  to  trouble  his  head  about  Wordsworth.  It 
would  have  taken  three  witches,  and  three  broom 
sticks,  clattering  about  his  head,  to  have  extorted  from 
Porson  any  attention  to  a  contemporary  poet  that  did 
not  give  first-rate  feeds.  And  a  man  that,  besides  his 
criminal  conduct  in  respect  of  dinners,  actually  made 
it  a  principle  to  drink  nothing  but  water,  would  have 
seemed  so  depraved  a  character  in  Person's  eyes  that, 
out  of  regard  to  public  decency,  he  would  never  have 
mentioned  his  name,  had  he  even  happened  to  know 
it.  l  Oh  no !  he  never  mentioned  him.'*  Be  assured 
of  that.  As  to  Poetry,  be  it  known  that  Porson  read 
none  whatever,  unless  it  were  either  political  or  ob 
scene.  With  no  seasoning  of  either  sort,  4  wherefore,' 
he  would  ask  indignantly,  '  should  I  waste  my  time 
upon  a  poem  ?  '  Porson  had  read  the  Rolliad,  because 
it  concerned  his  political  party  ;  he  had  read  the  epistle 
of  Obereea,  Queen  of  Otaheite,  to  Sir  Joseph  Banks, 
because,  if  Joseph  was  rather  too  demure,  the  poem  was 
not.  Else,  and  with  such  exceptions,  he  condescended 
not  to  any  metrical  writer  subsequent  to  the  era  of  Pope, 
whose  Eloisa  to  Abelard  he  coulfl  say  by  heart,  and 
could  even  sing  from  beginning  to  end  ;  which,  indeed, 


268  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

he  would  do,  whether  you  chose  it  or  not,  after  a  suffi 
cient  charge  of  brandy,  and  sometimes  even  though 
threatened  with  a  cudgel,  in  case  he  persisted  in  his 
molestations.  Waller  he  had  also  read,  and  occasion 
ally  quoted  with  effect.  But  as  to  a  critique  on  Words 
worth,  whose  name  had  not  begun  to  mount  from  the 
ground  when  Person  died,9  as  reasonably  and  charac 
teristically  might  it  have  been  put  into  the  mouth  of 
the  Hctman  Platoff.  Instead  of  Person's  criticisms  on 
writings  which  he  never  saw,  let  us  hear  Person's 
account  of  a  fashionable  rout  in  an  aristocratic  London 
mansion  :  it  was  the  only  party  of  distinction  that  this 
hirsute  but  most  learned  Theban  ever  visited  ;  and  his 
history  of  what  passed  (comic  alike  and  tragic)  is 
better  worth  preserving  than  '  Brantomc,'  or  even  than 
Swift's  '  Memoirs  of  a  Parish  Clerk.'  It  was  by  the 
hoax  of  a  young  Cantab  that  the  Professor  was  ever 
decoyed  into  such  a  party :  the  thing  was  a  swindle ; 
but  his  report  of  its  natural  philosophy  is  not  on  that 
account  the  less  picturesque  :  — 

SOUTHEY.  —  Why  do   you   repeat  the  word  rout  so  often? 

PORSON.  —  I  was  once  at  one  by  mistake  ;  and  really  I 
saw  there  what  you  describe  :  and  this  made  me  repeat  the 
word  and  smile.  You  seem  curious. 

SOUTHEY.  —  Rather,  indeed. 

PORSON.  —  I  had  been  dining  out;  there  were  some  who 
smoked  after  dinner:  within  a  few  hours,  the  fumes  of  their 
pipes  produced  such  an  effect  on  my  head  that  I  was  willing 
to  go  into  the  air  a  little.  Still  I  continued  hot  and  thirsty ; 
and  an  undergraduate,  whose  tutor  was  my  old  acquaintance, 
proposed  that  we  should  turn  into  an  oyster-cellar,  and  refresh 
ourselves  with  oysters  and  porter.  The  rogue,  instead  of  this, 
conducted  me  to  a  fashionable  house  in  the  neighborhood  of  St. 


;  , 


NOTES    ON    WALTER  'J<)i) 


James's ;  and,  although  I  expostulated  with  nlTrr,*trrrft  insisted 
that  we  were  going  up  stairs  and  not  down,  he  appeared  to  me 
so  ingenuous  in  his  protestations  to  the  contrary  that  I  could 
well  disbelieve  him  no  longer.  Nevertheless,  receiving  on  the 
stairs  many  shoves  and  elbowings,  I  could  not  help  telling  him 
plainly  —  that,  if  indeed  it  mas  the  oyster-cellar  in  Fleet  Street, 
the  company  was  much  altered  for  the  worse  ;  and  that,  in 
future,  I  should  frequent  another.  When  the  fumes  of  the 
pipes  had  left  me,  I  discovered  the  deceit  by  the  brilliancy  and 
indecency  of  the  dresses  ;  and  was  resolved  not  to  fall  into 
temptation.  Although,  to  my  great  satisfaction,  no  immodest 
proposal  was  directly  made  to  me,  I  looked  about  anxious  that 
no  other  man  should  know  me  beside  him  whose  wantonness 
had  conducted  me  thither;  and  I  would  have  escaped,  if  I 
could  have  found  the  door,  from  which  every  effort  I  made 
appeared  to  remove  me  farther  and  farther.  *  *  *  A 
pretty  woman  said  loudly,  '  He  has  no  gloves  on  ! '  '  What 
nails  the  creature  has!'  replied  an  older  one  —  'Piano-forte 
keys  wanting  the  white.' 

I  pause  to  say  that  this,  by  all  accounts  which  have 
reached  posterity,  was  really  no  slander.  The  Profes 
sor's  forks  had  become  rather  of  the  dingiest,  probably 
through  inveterate  habits  of  scratching  up  Greek  roots 
from  diltivian  mould,  some  of  it  older  than  Deucalion's 
flood,  and  very  good,  perhaps,  for  turnips,  but  less  so 
for  the  digits  which  turn  up  turnips.  What  followed, 
however,  if  it  were  of  a  nature  to  be  circumstantially 
repeated,  must  have  been  more  trying  to  the  sensibili 
ties  of  the  Greek  oracle,  and  to  the  blushes  of  the 
policeman  dispersed  throughout  the  rooms,  than  even 
the  harsh  critique  upon  his  nails ;  which,  let  the  wits 
say  what  they  would  in  their  malice,  were  no  doubt 
washed  regularly  enough  once  every  three  years. 
And,  even  if  they  were  not,  I  should  say  that  this  is  not 


270  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

so  strong  a  fact  as  some  that  are  reported  about  many 
a  continental  professor.  Mrs.  Cl nt,  with  the  two 
fold  neatness  of  an  Englishwoman  and  a  Quaker,  told 
me  that,  on  visiting  Pestalozzi,  the  celebrated  education 
professor,  at  Yverdun,  about  1820,  her  first  impression, 
from  a  distant  view  of  his  dilapidated  premises,  was 
profound  horror  at  the  grimncss  of  his  complexion, 
which  struck  her  as  no  complexion  formed  by  nature, 
but  as  a  deposition  from  half  a  century  of  atmospheric 
rust  —  a  most  ancient  aerugo.  She  insisted  on  a  radical 
purification,  as  a  sine  qua  non  towards  any  interview 
with  herself.  The  mock  professor  consented.  Mrs.  Cl. 
hired  a  stout  Swiss  charwoman,  used  to  the  scouring  of 
staircases,  kitchen  floors,  &c. ;  the  professor,  whom,  on 
this  occasion,  one  may  call  '  the  prisoner,'  was  accom 
modated  with  a  seat  (as  prisoners  at  the  bar  sometimes 
are  with  us)  in  the  centre  of  a  mighty  washing-tub,  and 
then  scoured  through  a  long  summer  forenoon,  by  the 
strength  of  a  brawny  Helvetian  arm.  '  And  now,  my 
dear  friends,'  said  Mrs.  Cl.  to  myself,  '  is  it  thy  opinion 
that  this  was  cruel  ?  Some  people  say  it  ivas ;  and  I 
wish  to  disguise  nothing ;  —  it  was  not  mere  soap 
that  I  had  him  scoured  with,  but  soap  and  sand  ;  so, 
say  honestly,  dost  thee  call  that  cruel  ?  '  Laughing  no 
more  than  the  frailty  of  my  human  nature  compelled 
me,  I  replied,  '  Far  from  it ;  on  the  contrary,  every 
body  must  be  charmed  with  her  consideration  for  the 
professor,  in  not  having  him  cleaned  on  the  same 
principle  as  her  carriage,  viz.,  taken  to  the  stable-yard, 
mopped  severely,'  ['  mobbed,  dost  thee  say  ? '  she  ex 
claimed  ;  *  No,  no,'  I  said,  '  not  mobbed,  but  mopped, 
until  the  gravel  should  be  all  gone,']  'then  pelted  with 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  271 

buckets  of  water  by  firemen,  and,  finally,  currycombcd 
and  rubbed  down  by  two  grooms,  keeping  a  sharp 
susurrus  between  them,  so  as  to  soothe  his  wounded 
feelings  ;  after  all  which,  a  feed  of  oats  might  not  have 
been  amiss.'  The  result,  however,  of  this  scouring 
extraordinary  was  probably  as  fatal  as  to  Mambrino's 
helmet  in  Don  Quixote.  Pestalozzi  issued,  indeed, 
from  the  washing-tub  like  Aeson  from  Medea's  kettle ; 
he  took  his  station  amongst  a  younger  and  fairer  gene 
ration  ;  and  the  dispute  was  now  settled  whether  he 
belonged  to  the  Caucasian  or  Mongolian  race.  But 
his  intellect  was  thought  to  have  suffered  seriously. 
The  tarnish  of  fifty  or  sixty  years  seemed  to  have 
acquired  powers  of  re-acting  as  a  stimulant  upon  the 
professor's  fancy,  through  the  rete  mucosum,  or  through 
—  heaven  knows  what.  He  was  too  old  to  be  convert 
ed  to  cleanliness  ;  the  Paganism  of  a  neglected  person 
at  seventy  becomes  a  sort  of  religion  interwoven  with 
the  nervous  system  — just  as  the  well  known  PUca  Po- 
lonica  from  which  the  French  armies  suffered  so  much 
in  Poland,  during  1807—8,  though  produced  by  neglect 
of  the  hair,  will  not  be  cured  by  extirpation  of  the  hair. 
The  hair  becomes  matted  into  Medusa  locks,  or  what 
look  like  snakes  ;  and  to  cut  these  off  is  oftentimes  to 
cause  nervous  frenzy,  or  other  great  constitutional 
disturbance.  I  never  heard,  indeed,  that  Pestalozzi 
suffered  apoplexy  from  his  scouring  ;  but  certainly  his 
ideas  on  education  grew  bewildered,  and  will  be  found 
essentially  damaged,  after  that  great  epoch  —  his  bap 
tism  by  water  and  sand. 

Now,  in  comparison  of  an  Orson  like  this  man  of 
Yvcrdun  —  this  great  Swiss  reformer,  who  might,  per- 


272  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

haps,  have  bred  a  pet  variety  of  typhus  fever  for  his 
own  separate  use — what  signify  nails,  though  worse 
than  Caliban's  or  Nebuchadnezzar's  ? 

This  Greek  professor  Person —  whose  knowledge  of 
English  was  so  limited  that  his  total  cargo  might  have 
been  embarked  on  board  a  walnut-shell,  on  the  bosom 
of  a  slop  bason,  and  insured  for  three  halfpence  — 
astonishes  me,  that  have  been  studying  English  for 
thirty  years  and  upwards,  by  the  strange  discoveries 
that  he  announces  in  this  field.  One  and  all,  I  fear, 
are  mares'  nests.  He  discovered,  for  instance,  on  his 
first  and  last  reception  amongst  aristocratic  people,  that 
in  this  region  of  society  a  female  bosom  is  called  her 
neck.  But,  if  it  really  had  been  so  called,  I  see  no 
objection  to  the  principle  concerned  in  such  disguises  ; 
and  I  see  the  greatest  to  that  savage  frankness  which 
virtually  is  indicated  with  applause  in  the  Porsonian 
remark.  Let  us  consider.  It  is  not  that  we  cannot 
speak  freely  of  the  female  bosom,  and  we  do  so  daily. 
In  discussing  a  statue,  we  do  so  without  reserve ;  and 
in  the  act  of  suckling  an  infant,  the  bosom  of  every 
woman  is  an  idea  so  sheltered  by  the  tenderness  and 
sanctity  with  which  all  but  ruffians  invest  the  organ 
of  maternity,  that  no  man  scruples  to  name  it,  if  the 
occasion  warrants  it.  He  suppresses  it  only  as  he 
suppresses  the  name  of  God  ;  not  as  an  idea  that  can 
itself  contain  any  indecorum,  but,  on  the  contrary,  as 
making  other  and  more  trivial  ideas  to  become  inde 
corous  when  associated  with  a  conception  rising  so 
much  above  their  own  standard.  Equally,  the  words, 
affliction,  guilt, penitence,  remorse,  &c.,  are  proscribed 
from  the  ordinary  current  of  conversation  amongst 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  273 

mere  acquaintances  ;  and  for  the  same  reason,  viz., 
that  they  touch  chords  too  impassioned  and  profound 
for  harmonizing  with  the  key  in  which  the  mere  social 
civilities  of  life  are  exchanged.  Meantime,  it  is  not 
true  that  any  custom  ever  prevailed  in  any  class  of 
calling  a  woman's  bosom  her  neck.  Person  goes  on 
to  say,  that,  for  his  part,  he  was  born  in  an  age  when 
people  had  thighs.  Well,  a  great  many  people  have 
thighs  still.  But  in  all  ages  there  must  have  been 
many  of  whom  it  is  lawful  to  suspect  such  a  fact  zo 
ologically  ;  and  yet,  as  men  honoring  our  own  race, 
and  all  its  veils  of  mystery,  not  too  openly  to  insist 
upon  it,  which,  luckily,  there  is  seldom  any  occasion 
to  do. 

Mr.  Landor  conceives  that  we  are  growing  worse  in 
the  pedantries  of  false  delicacy.  I  think  not.  His 
own  residence  in  Italy  has  injured  his  sense  of  discrim 
ination.  It  is  not  his  countrymen  that  have  grown 
conspicuously  more  demure  and  prudish,  but  he  himself 
that  has  grown  in  Italy  more  tolerant  of  what  is  really 
a  blameable  coarseness.  Various  instances  occur  in 
these  volumes  of  that  faulty  compliance  with  Southern 
grossness.  The  tendencies  of  the  age,  among  our 
selves,  lie  certainly  in  one  channel  towards  excessive 
refinement.  So  far,  however,  they  do  but  balance  the 
opposite  tendencies  in  some  other  channels.  The 
craving  for  instant  effect  in  style  —  as  it  brings  forward 
many  disgusting  Germanisms  and  other  barbarisms  — 
as  it  transplants  into  literature  much  slang  from  the 
street  —  as  it  re-acts  painfully  upon  the  grandeurs  of  the 
antique  scriptural  diction,  by  recalling  into  colloquial 
use  many  consecrated  words  which  thus  lose  their 
18 


274  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOtt. 

Gothic  beauty  —  also  operates  daily  amongst  journal 
ists,  by  the  temptations  of  apparent  strength  that  lurk 
in  plain  speaking  or  even  in  brutality.  What  other 
temptation,  for  instance,  can  be  supposed  to  govern 
those  who,  in  speaking  of  hunger  as  it  affects  our 
paupers,  so  needlessly  affect  us  by  the  very  coarsest 
English  word  for  the  Latin  word  venter  1  Surely  the 
word  stomach  would  be  intelligible  to  everybody,  and 
yet  disgust  nobody.  It  would  do  for  him  that  affects 
plain  speaking  ;  it  would  do  for  you  and  me  that  revolt 
from  gross  speaking.  Signs  from  abroad  speak  the 
very  same  language,  as  to  the  liberal  tendencies  (in 
this  point)  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Formerly,  it 
was  treason  for  a  Spaniard,  even  in  a  laudatory  copy 
of  verses,  to  suppose  his  own  Queen  lowered  to  the 
level  of  other  females  by  the  possession  of  legs  !  Con 
stitutionally,  the  Queen  was  incapable  of  legs.  How 
else  her  Majesty  contrived  to  walk,  or  to  dance,  the 
Inquisition  soon  taught  the  poet  was  no  concern  of  his. 
Royal  legs  for  females  were  an  inconceivable  thing  — 
except  amongst  Protestant  nations ;  some  of  whom  the 
Spanish  Church  affirmed  to  be  even  disfigured  by  tails  ! 
Having  tails,  of  course  they  might  have  legs.  But  not 
Catholic  Queens.  Now-a-days,  so  changed  is  all  this, 
that  if  you  should  even  express  your  homage  to  her 
Most  Catholic  Majesty,  by  sending  her  a  pair  of  em 
broidered  garters  —  which  certainly  pre-suppose  legs 
—  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Spanish  Minister  of 
Finance  would  gratefully  carry  them  to  account  —  on 
the  principle  that  '  every  little  helps.'  Mr.  Person  is 
equally  wrong,  as  I  conceive,  in  another  illustration 
of  this  matter,  drawn  from  the  human  toes,  and  speci- 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SJ^VAB-LANDOR.  275 


fically  from  the  great  toe.  It  il^glW^ljat,  in  refined 
society,  upon  any  rare  necessity  arising  for  alluding  to 
so  inconsiderable  a  member  of  the  human  statue,  gene 
rally  this  is  done  at  present  by  the  French  term  doigt- 
de-pied  —  though  not  always  —  as  may  be  seen  in 
various  honorary  certificates  granted  to  chiropodists 
within  the  last  twenty  months.  And  whereas  Mr.  Por- 
son  asks  pathetically  —  What  harm  has  the  great  toe 
done,  that  it  is  never  to  be  named  ?  I  answer  —  The 
greatest  harm;  as  may  be  seen  in  the  first  act  of 
*  Coriolanus,'  where  Menenius  justly  complains,  that 
this  arrogant  subaltern  of  the  crural  system, 

' Being  basest,  meanest,  vilest, 

Still  goeth  foremost.' 

Even  in  the  villany  of  running  away  from  battle,  this 
unworthy  servant  still  asserts  precedency.  I  repeat, 
however,  that  the  general  tendencies  of  the  age,  as  to 
the  just  limits  of  parrhesia,  (using  the  Greek  word  in  a 
sense  wider  than  of  old,)  are  moving  at  present  upon 
two  opposite  tracks  ;  which  fact  it  is,  as  in  some  other 
cases,  that  makes  the  final  judgment  difficult. 

ROMAN    IMPERATOR. 

Mr.  Landor,  though  really  learned,  often  puts  his 
learning  into  his  pocket. 

Thus,  with  respect  to  the  German  Empire,  Mr.  L. 
asserts  that  it  was  a  chimacra  ;  that  the  Imperium  Gcr- 
manicum  was  a  mere  usage  of  speech,  founded  (if  I 
understand  him)  not  even  in  a  legal  fiction,  but  in  a 
blunder  ;  that  a  German  Imperator  never  had  a  true 
historical  existence  ;  and,  finally,  that  even  the  Roman 


276  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

title  of  Imperator  —  which,  unquestionably,  surmounted 
in  grandeur  all  titles  of  honor  that  ever  were  or  will  be 
—  ranged  in  dignity  below  the  title  of  Rex. 

I  believe  him  wrong  in  every  one  of  these  doctrines  ; 
let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the  last.  The  title  of  Impe 
rator  was  not  originally  either  above  or  below  the  title 
of  Rex,  or  even  upon  the  same  level ;  it  was  what 
logicians  call  disparate  —  it  radiated  from  a  different 
centre,  precisely  as  the  modern  title  of  Decanus,  or 
Dean,  which  is  originally  astrological,  [see  the  elder 
Scaliger  on  Manilius,]  has  no  relation,  whether  of 
superiority  or  equality  or  inferiority,  to  the  title  of 
Colonel,  nor  the  title  of  Cardinal  any  such  relation  to 
that  of  Field-Marshal ;  and  quite  as  little  had  Rex  to 
Imperator.  Masters  of  Ceremonies,  or  Lord  Chamber 
lains,  may  certainly  create  a  precedency  in  favor  of 
any  title  whatever  in  regard  to  any  other  title  ;  but 
such  a  precedency  for  any  of  the  cases  before  us  would 
be  arbitrary,  and  not  growing  out  of  any  internal  prin 
ciple,  though  useful  for  purposes  of  convenience.  As 
regards  the  Roman  Imperator,  originally  like  the  Ro 
man  Prcetor  —  this  title  and  the  official  rank  pointed 
exclusively  to  military  distinctions.  In  process  of  time, 
the  Praetor  came  to  be  a  legal  officer,  and  the  Impera 
tor  to  be  the  supreme  political  officer.  But  the  motive 
for  assuming  the  title  of  Imperator,  as  the  badge  or 
cognizance  of  the  sovereign  authority,  when  the  great 
transfiguration  of  the  Republic  took  place,  seems  to 
have  been  this.  An  essentially  new  distribution  of 
political  powers  had  become  necessary, and  this  change 
masqued  itself  to  Romans,  published  itself  in  menaces 
and  muttering  thunder  to  foreign  states,  through  the 


NOTES   ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  277 

martial  title  of  Imperator.  A  new  equilibrium  was 
demanded  by  the  changes  which  time  and  luxury  and 
pauperism  had  silently  worked  in  the  composition  of 
Roman  society.  If  Rome  was  to  be  saved  from  herself 
—  if  she  was  to  be  saved  from  the  eternal  flux  and 
reflux  —  action  and  re-action  —  amongst  her  oligarchy 
of  immense  estates  [which  condition  of  things  it  was 
that  forced  on  the  great  sine  qua  non  reforms  of  Caesar, 
against  all  the  babble  of  the  selfish  Cicero,  of  the 
wicked  Cato,  and  of  the  debt-ridden  Senate]  — then  it 
was  indispensable  that  a  new  order  of  powers  should 
be  combined  for  bridling  her  internal  convulsions.  To 
carry  her  off  from  her  own  self-generated  vortex, 
which  would,  in  a  very  few  years,  have  engulphed  her 
and  drawn  her  down  into  fragments,  some  machinery 
as  new  as  steam-power  was  required  :  .her  own  native 
sails  filled  in  the  wrong  direction.  There  were  already 
powers  in  the  constitution  equal  to-  the  work,  but  dis 
tracted  and  falsely  lodged.  These  must  be  gathered 
into  one  hand.  And,  yet,  as  names  are  all-powerful 
upon  our  frail  race,  this  recast  must  be  verbally  dis 
guised.  The  title  must  be  such  as,  whilst  flattering 
the  Roman  pride,  might  yet  announce  to  Oriental 
powers  a  plenipotentiary  of  Rome  who  argued  all  dis 
puted  points,  not  so  much  strongly  as  (an  Irish  phrase) 
with  '  a  strong  back  '  —  not  so  much  piquing  himself 
on  Aristotelian  syllogisms  that  came  within  Barlary 
and  Celarent,  as  upon  thirty  legions  that  stood  within 
call.  The  Consulship  was  good  for  little;  that,  with 
some  reservations,  could  be  safely  resigned  into  subor 
dinate  hands.  The  Consular  name,  and  the  name  of 
Senate,  which  was  still  suffered  to  retain  an  obscure 


278  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

vitality  and  power  of  resurrection,  continued  to  throw 
a  popular  lustre  over  the  government.  Millions  were 
duped.  But  the  essential  offices,  the  offices  in  which 
settled  the  organs  of  all  the  life  in  the  administration, 
were  these  :  —  1,  of  Military  Commander-in-Chief  (in 
cluding  such  a  partition  of  the  provinces  as  might  seal 
the  authority  in  this  officer's  hands,  and  yet  flatter  the 
people  through  the  Senate)  ;  2,  of  Censor,  so  as  to 
watch  the  action  of  morals  and  social  usages  upon 
politics  ;  3,  of  Pontifex  Maximus  ;  4,  and  finally, 
of  Tribune.  The  tribunitial  power,  next  after  the 
military  power,  occupied  the  earliest  anxieties  of  the 
Caesars.  All  these  powers,  and  some  others  belonging 
to  less  dignified  functions,  were  made  to  run  through 
the  same  central  rings  (or  what  in  mail-coach  harness 
is  called  the  turrets) :  the  '  ribbons '  were  tossed  up  to 
one  and  the  same  imperial  coachman,  looking  as  ami 
able  as  he  could,  but,  in  fact,  a  very  truculent  person 
age,  having  powers  more  unlimited  than  was  always 
safe  for  himself.  And  now,  after  all  this  change  of 
things,  what  was  to  be  the  name  ?  By  what  title  should 
men  know  him  ?  Much  depended  upon  that.  The 
tremendous  symbols  of  S.  P.  Q.  R.  still  remained  ;  nor 
had  they  lost  their  power.  On  the  contrary,  the  great 
idea  of  the  Roman  destiny,  as  of  some  vast  phantom 
moving  under  God  to  some  unknown  end,  was  greater 
than  ever  :  the  idea  was  now  so  great,  that  it  had 
outgrown  all  its  representative  realities.  Consul  and 
Proconsul  would  no  longer  answer,  because  they  rep 
resented  too  exclusively  the  interior  or  domestic  foun 
tains  of  power,  and  not  the  external  relations  to  the 
terraqueous  globe  which  were  beginning  to  expand  with 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  279 

s*'dden  accelerations  of  velocity.     The  central  power 
ou'^i  noc  be  forgotten  by  any  who  were  near  enough 
'asted  its  wrath  ;  but  now  there  was  arising  a 
••essing,  by  some  great  unity  of  de- 
no  longer  to  lose  the  totality  in  the 
'S  —  the  enormity  of  the  circumference. 
had  repeatedly  been  found  in  nego- 
-ts  of  ceremonial  rank  with  oriental 
i.  "urselves  and  China.    With  Persia, 
»i  ot  these  powers,  an  instinct  of  inevitable 
.iad,  for  some  time,  been  ripening.     It  be- 
isite  that  there  should   be  a  representative 
the  whole  Roman  grandeur,  and  one  capable 
the  same  level  as  the  Persian  king  of 
,_,    ,    an      ti.ib    necessity   arose   at   the   very   same 
loment  that  a  new  organization  was  required  of  Ro 
man  nower  for  domestic  purposes.     There  is  no  doubt 
that  both  purposes  were  consulted  in  the  choice  of  the 
title  of  Imperator.     The  chief  alternative  title  was  that 
of  Dictator.     But  to  this,  as  regarded  Romans,  there 
were  two  objections — first,  that  it  was  a  mere  provis 
ional  title,  always  commemorating  a  transitional  emer- 
•  noy,  and  pointing  to  some  happier  condition,  which 
the  extraordinary  powers  of  the  officer  ought  soon  to 
establish.     It  was  in  the  nature  of  a  problem,  and  con 
tinually  asked  for  its  own  solution.     The  Dictator  dic 
tated.     He  was  the  greatest  ipse  dixit  that  ever  was 
heard  of.     It  reminded  the  people  verbally  of  despotic 
powers  and  autocracy.    Then  again,  as  regarded  foreign 
nations,  unacquainted  with  the  Roman  constitution,  and 
throughout  the  servile  East  incapable  of  understanding 
it,  the  title  of  Dictator  had  no  meaning  at  all.      The 


280  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

Speaker  is  a  magnificent  title  in  England,  and  makes 
brave  men  sometimes  shake  in  their  shoes.  But,  yet, 
if  from  rustic  ignorance  it  is  not  understood,  even  that 
title  means  nothing. 

Of  the  proudest  Speaker  that  England  ever  saw, 
viz.,  Sir  Edward  Seymour,  it  is  recorded  that  his 
grandeur  failed  him,  sank  under  him,  like  the  New 
gate  drop,  at  the  very  moment  when  his  boiling  anger 
most  relied  upon  and  required  it.  He  was  riding 
near  Barnet,  when  a  rustic  wagoner  ahead  of  him, 
by  keeping  obstinately  the  middle  of  the  road,  pre 
vented  him  from  passing.  Sir  Edward  motioned  to 
him  magnificently,  that  he  must  turn  his  horses  to 
the  left.  The  carter,  on  some  fit  of  the  sulks  (perhaps 
from  the  Jacobinism  innate  in  man),  despised  this 
pantomime,  and  sturdily  persisted  in  his  mutinous 
disrespect.  On  which  Sir  Edward  shouted  —  'Fellow, 
do  you  know  who  I  am  ? '  '  Noo-ahS  replied  our 
rebellious  friend,  meaning,  when  faithfully  translated, 
no.  '  Are  you  aware,  Sirrah,'  said  Sir  Edward,  now 
thoroughly  incensed,  '  that  I  am  the  right  honorable 
the  Speaker?  At  your  peril,  Sir,  in  the  name  of 
the  Commons  of  England,  in  Parliament  assembled, 
'  quarter  instantly  to  the  left.'  This  was  said  in  that 
dreadful  voice  which  sometimes  reprimanded  penitent 
offenders,  kneeling  at  the  bar  of  the  House.  The 
carter,  more  struck  by  the  terrific  tones  than  the 
words,  spoke  an  aside  to  'Dobbin/  (his  'thill1  horse,) 
which  procured  an  opening  to  the  blazing  Speaker, 
and  then  replied  thus  — '  Speaker!  Why,  if  so  be  as 
thou  can'st  speak,  whoy-y-y-y-y,'  (in  the  tremulous  un 
dulation  with  which  he  was  used  to  utter  his  sovereign 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  281 

whoah-h-h-h  to  his  horses,) '  Whoy-y-y-y  didn't-a  speak 
afore?'  The  wagoner,  it  seemed,  had  presumed  Sir 
Edward,  from  his  mute  pantomime,  to  be  a  dumb 
man  ;  and  all  which  the  proud  Speaker  gained,  by  the 
proclamation  of  his  style  and  title,  was,  to  be  exone 
rated  from  that  suspicion,  but  to  the  heavy  discredit  of 
his  sanity.  A  Roman  Dictator  stood  quite  as  poor  a 
chance  with  foreigners,  as  our  Speaker  with  a  rustic. 
'  Dictator !  let  him  dictate  to  his  wife  ;  but  he  shaVt 
dictate  to  us.'  Any  title,  to  prosper  with  distant 
nations,  must  rest  upon  the  basis  of  arms.  And  this 
fell  in  admirably  with  the  political  exigency  for  Rome 
herself.  The  title  of  Imperator  was  liable  to  no 
jealousy.  Being  entirely  a  military  title,  it  clashed 
with  no  civil  pretensions  whatever.  Being  a  military 
title,  that  recorded  a  triumph  over  external  enemies  in 
the  field,  it  was  dear  to  the  patriotic  heart ;  whilst  it 
directed  the  eye  to  a  quarter  where  all  increase  of 
power  was  concurrent  with  increase  of  benefit  to  the 
State.  And  again,  as  the  honor  had  been  hitherto 
purely  titular,  accompanied  by  some  auctoritas,  in  the 
Roman  sense,  [not  always  honor*,  for  Cicero  was  an 
Imperator  for  Cilician  exploits,  which  he  reports  with 
laughter,]  but  no  separate  authority  in  our  modern 
sense.  Even  in  military  circles  it  was  open  to  little 
jealousy  ;  nor  apparently  could  ripen  into  a  shape  that 
ever  would  be  so,  since,  according  to  all  precedent,  it 
would  be  continually  balanced  by  the  extension  of  the 
same  title,  under  popular  military  suffrage,  to  other 
fortunate  leaders.  Who  could  foresee,  at  the  inaugu 
ration  of  this  reform,  that  this  precedent  would  be 
abolished?  who  could  guess  that  henceforwards  no 


282  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

more  triumphs,  (but  only  a  sparing  distribution  of 
triumphal  decorations,)  henceforwards  no  more  im- 
peratorial  titles  for  anybody  out  of  the  one  consecrated 
family?  All  this  was  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  the 
earliest  Irnperator  :  he  seemed,  to  the  great  mass  of 
the  people,  perfectly  innocent  of  civic  ambition  :  he 
rested  upon  his  truncheon,  i.e.,  upon  S.  P.  Q.  R. :  like 
Napoleon,  he  said,  '  I  am  but  the  first  soldier  of  the 
republic,'  that  is,  the  most  dutiful  of  her  servants;  and, 
like  Napoleon,  under  cover  of  this  martial  paludamen- 
tum.)  he  had  soon  filched  every  ensign  of  authority  by 
which  the  organs  of  public  power  could  speak.  But, 
at  the  beginning,  this  title  of  Imperator  was  the  one 
by  far  the  best  fitted  to  masque  all  this,  to  disarm 
suspicion,  and  to  win  the  confidence  of  the  people. 

The  title,  therefore,  began  in  something  like  impos 
ture  ;  and  it  was  not  certainly  at  first  the  gorgeous 
title  into  which  it  afterwards  blossomed.  The  earth 
did  not  yet  ring  with  it.  The  rays  of  its  diadem  were 
not  then  the  first  that  said  All  hail!  to  the  rising  — 
the  last  that  said  Farewell !  to  the  setting  sun.  But 
still  it  was  already  a  splendid  distinction  ;  and,  in  a 
Roman  ear,  it  must  have  sounded  far  above  all  com 
petition  from  the  trivial  title  (in  that  day)  of  'Rex,' 
unless  it  were  the  Persian  Rex,  viz.,  'Rex  Regum.' 
Romans  gave  the  title  ;  they  stooped  not  to  accept  it.11 
Even  Mark  Antony,  in  the  all-magnificent  description 
of  him  by  Shakspeare's  Cleopatra,  could  give  it  in 
showers  —  kings  waited  in  his  ante-room,  'and  from 
his  pocket  fell  crowns  and  sceptres.'  The  title  of 
Lnperator  was  indeed  rcapqd  in  glory  that  transcended 
the  glory  of  earth,  but  it  was  not,  therefore,  sown  in 
dishonor. 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  283 

We  are  all  astonished  at  Mr.  Landor  —  myself  and 
three  hundred  select  readers.  What  can  he  mean  by 
tilting  against  the  Impcrator  —  Semper  Augustus? 
Before  him  the  sacred  fire  (that  burned  from  century 
to  century)  went  pompously  in  advance  —  before  him 
the  children  of  Europe  and  Asia —  of  Africa  and  the 
islands,  rode  as  dorypheroi ;  his  somatophulakes  were 
princes ;  and  his  empire,  when  burning  out  in  Byzan 
tium,  furnished  from  its  very  ruins  the  models  for  our 
western  honors  and  ceremonial.  Had  it  even  begun 
in  circumstances  of  ignominy,  that  would  have  been 
cured  easily  by  its  subsequent  triumph.  Many  are  the 
titles  of  earth  that  have  found  a  glory  in  looking  back 
to  the  humility  of  their  origin  as  its  most  memorable 
feature.  The  fisherman  who  sits  upon  Mount  Pala 
tine,  in  some  respects  the  grandest  of  all  potentates, 
as  one  wielding  both  earthly  and  heavenly  thunders,  is 
the  highest  example  of  this.  Some,  like  the  Mame 
lukes  of  Egypt  and  the  early  Janizaries  of  the  Porte, 
have  glorified  themselves  in  being  slaves.  Others, 
like  the  Caliphs,  have  founded  their  claims  to  men's 
homage  in  the  fact  of  being  successors  to  those  who 
(between  ourselves)  were  knaves.  And  once  it  hap 
pened  to  Professor  Wilson  and  myself,  that  we  travel 
led  in  the  same  post-chaise  with  a  most  agreeable 
madman,  who,  amongst  a  variety  of  other  select  facts 
which  he  communicated,  was  kind  enough  to  give  us 
the  following  etymological  account  of  our  much- 
respected  ancestors  the  Saxons ;  which  furnishes  a 
further  illustration  [quite  unknown  to  the  learned]  of 
the  fact  —  that  honor  may  glory  in  deducing  itself 
from  circumstances  of  humility.  He  assured  us  that 


284  NOTES    ON   WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

these  worthy  Pagans  were  a  Ica^lie,  comprehending 
every  single  brave  man  of  German  blood  ;  so  much 
so,  that  on  sailing  away  they  left  that  unhappy  land  in 
a  state  of  universal  cowardice,  which  accounts  for  the 
licking  it  subsequently  received  from  Napoleon.  The 
Saxons  were  very  poor,  as  brave  men  too  often  are. 
In  fact,  they  had  no  breeches,  and,  of  course,  no  silk 
stockings.  They  had,  however,  sacks,  which  they 
mounted  on  their  backs,  whence  naturally  their  name 
Sax-on.  Sacks-on  I  was  the  one  word  of  command, 
and  that  spoken,  the  army  was  ready.  In  reality,  it 
was  treason  to  take  them  off.  But  this  indorsement 
of  their  persons  was  not  assumed  on  any  Jewish  prin 
ciple  of  humiliation ;  on  the  contrary,  in  the  most 
flagrant  spirit  of  defiance  to  the  whole  race  of  man. 
For  they  proclaimed  that,  having  no  breeches  nor  silk 
stockings  of  their  own,  they  intended,  wind  and  weather 
permitting,  to  fill  these  same  sacks  with  those  of  other 
men.  The  Welshmen  then  occupying  England  were 
reputed  to  have  a  good  stock  of  both,  and  in  quest  of 
this  Welsh  wardrobe  the  Sacks-on  army  sailed.  With 
what  success  it  is  not  requisite  to  say,  since  here  in 
one  post-chaise,  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  after, 
were  three  of  their  posterity,  the  Professor,  the  mad 
man,  and  myself,  indorsees  (as  you  may  say)  of  the 
original  indorsers,  who  were  all  well  equipped  with 
the  objects  of  this  great  Sacks-on  exodus. 

It  is  true  that  the  word  emperor  is  not  in  every 
situation  so  impressive  as  the  word  king.  But  that 
arises  in  part  from  the  latter  word  having  less  of 
specialty  about  it ;  it  is  more  catholic,  and  to  that 
extent  more  poetic ;  and  in  part  from  accidents  of 


NOTES    QN    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

position  which  disturb  the  relations  of  many  other 
titles  beside.  The  Proconsul  had  a  grander  sound,  as 
regarded  military  expeditions,  than  the  principal  from 
whom  he  emanated.  The  Surena  left  a  more  awful 
remembrance  of  his  title  upon  the  comrades  of  Julian 
in  his  Persian  expedition  than  the  Surena's  master. 
And  there  are  many  cases*  extant  in  which  the  word 
angel  strikes  a  deeper  key ;  cases  where  power  is  con 
templated  as  well  as  beauty  or  mysterious  existence, 
than  the  word  archangel,  though  confessedly  higher  in 
the  hierarchies  of  Heaven. 

Let  me  now  draw  the  reader's  attention  to  Count 
Julian,  a  great  conception  of  Mr.  Lander's. 

The  fable  of  Count  Julian  (that  isx  when  compre 
hending  all  the  parties  to  that  web,  of  which  he  is  the 
centre)  may  be  pronounced  the  grandest  which  mod 
ern  history  unfolds.  It  is,  and  it  is  not,  scenical.  In 
some  portions  (as  the  fate  so  mysterious  of  Roderick, 
and  in  a  higher  sense  of  Julian)  it  rises  as  much  above 
what  the  stage  could  Illustrate,  as  does  Thermopylae 
above  the  petty  details  of  narration.  The  man  was 
mad  that,  instead  of  breathing  from  a  hurricane  of 
harps  some  mighty  ode  over  Thcrmopyla?,  fancied  the 
little  conceit  of  weaving  it  into  a  metrical  novel  or  suc 
cession  of  incidents.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  though 
rising  higher,  Count  Julian  sinks  lower :  though  the 
passions  rise  far  above  Troy,  above  Marathon,  above 
Thermopylae,  and  are  such  passions  as  could  not  have 
existed  under  Paganism,  in  some  respects  they  conde 
scend  and  preconform  to  the  stage.  The  characters 
are  all  different,  all  marked,  all  in  position;  by  which, 
never  assuming  fixed  attitudes  as  to  purpose  and  inter- 


286  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

est,  the  passions  are  deliriously  complex,  and  the  situa 
tions  are  of  corresponding  grandeur.  Metius  FufTetius, 
Alban  traitor!  that  wert  torn  limb  from  limb  by  antag 
onist  yet  confederate  chariots,  thy  tortures,  seen  by 
shuddering  armies,  were  not  comparable  to  the  unseen 
tortures  in  Count  Julian's  mind;  who  —  whether  his 
treason  prospered  or  not,*whether  his  dear  outraged 
daughter  lived  or  died,  whether  his  king  were  tram 
pled  in  the  dust  by  the  horses  of  infidels,  or  escaped 
as  a  wreck  from  the  fiery  struggle,  whether  his  dear 
native  Spain  fell  for  ages  under  misbelieving  hounds, 
or,  combining  her  strength,  tossed  off  them,  but  then 
also  himself,  with  one  loathing  from  her  shores  —  saw, 
as  he  looked  out  into  the  mighty  darkness,  and  stretched 
out  his  penitential  hands  vainly  for  pity  or  for  pardon, 
nothing  but  the  blackness  of  ruin,  and  ruin  that  was 
too  probably  to  career  through  centuries.  'To  this 
pass,1  as  Caesar  said  to  his  soldiers  at  Pharsalia,  4  had 
his  enemies  reduced  him  ; '  and  Count  Julian  might 
truly  say,  as  he  stretched  himself  a  rueful  suppliant 
before  the  Cross,  listening  to  the  havoc  that  was  driving 
onwards  before  the  dogs  of  the  Crescent,  ''My  enemies, 
because  they  would  not  remember  that  I  was  a  man, 
forced  me  to  forget  that  I  was  a  Spaniard  :  —  to  forget 
thee,  oh  native  Spain,  —  and,  alas!  thee,  oh  faith  of 
Christ ! ' 

The  story  is  wrapt  in  gigantic  mists,  and  looms  upon 
one  like  the  Grecian  fable  of  (Edipus ;  and  there  will 
be  great  reason  for  disgust,  if  the  deep  Arabic  re 
searches  now  going  on  in  the  Escuriul,  or  at  Vienna, 
should  succeed  in  stripping  it  of  its  grandeurs.  For, 
as  it  stands  at  present,  it  is  the  most  fearful  lesson 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  287 

extant  of  the  great  moral,  that  crime  propagates  crime, 
and  violence  inherits  violence  ;  nay,  a  lesson  on  the 
awful  necessity  which  exists  at  times,  that  one  tremen 
dous  wrong  should  blindly  reproduce  itself  in  endless 
retaliatory  wrongs.  To  have  resisted  the  dread  temp 
tation,  would  have  needed  an  angel's  nature  :  to  have 
yielded,  is  but  human  ;  should  it,  then,  plead  in  vain 
for  pardon  ?  and  yet,  by  some  mystery  of  evil,  to  have 
perfected  this  human  vengeance,  is,  finally,  to  land  all 
parties  alike,  oppressor  and  oppressed,  in  the  passions 
of  hell. 

Mr.  Landor,  who  always  rises  with  his  subject,  and 
dilates  like  Satan  into  TenerifTe  or  Atlas,  when  he  sees 
before  him  an  antagonist  worthy  of  his  powers,  is  prob 
ably  the  one  man  in  Europe  that  has  adequately  con 
ceived  the  situation,  the  stern  self-dependency  and  the 
monumental  misery  of  Count  Julian.  That  sublimity 
of  penitential  grief,  which  cannot  accept  consolation 
from  man,  cannot  hear  external  reproach,  cannot  con 
descend  to  notice  insult,  cannot  so  much  as  see  the 
curiosity  of  -by-standers  ;  that  awful  carelessness  of 
all  but  the  troubled  deeps  within  his  own  heart,  and  of 
God's  spirit  brooding  upon  their  surface,  and  searching 
their  abysses,  never  was  so  majestically  described  as  in 
the  following  lines ;  it  is  the  noble  Spaniard,  Hernando, 
comprehending  and  loving  Count  Julian  in  the  midst  of 
his  treasons,  who  speaks: — Tarik,  the  gallant  Moor, 
having  said  that  at  last  the  Count  must  be  happy  ;  for 

that 

'  Delicious  calm 
Follows  the  fierce  enjoyment  of  revenge.' 

Hcrnando  replies  thus  :  — 


288  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

1  That  calm  was  never  his  ;  no  other  mill  be, 
Not  victory,  that  o'ershadows  him,  sees  he  : 
No  airy  and  light  passion  stirs  abroad 
To  ruffle  or  to  soothe  him  ;  all  are  quell'd 
Beneath  a  mightier,  sterner,  stress  of  mind. 
Wakeful  he  sits,  and  lonely,  and  unmov'd, 
Beyond  the  arrows,  shouts,  and  views  of  men. 
As  oftentimes  an  eagle,  ere  the  sun 
Throws  o'er  the  varying  earth  his  early  ray, 
Stands  solitary  —  stands  immovable 
Upon  some  highest  cliff,  and  rolls  his  eye, 
Clear,  constant,  unobservant,  unabas'd, 
In  the  cold  light  above  the  dews  of  morn.' 

One  change  suggests  itself  to  me  as  possibly  for  the 
better,  viz.,  if  the  magnificent  line  — 

1  Beyond  the  arrows,  shouts,  and  views  of  men '  — 

were  transferred  to  the  secondary  object,  the  eagle, 
placed  after  what  is  now  the  last  line,  it  would  give  a 
fuller  rhythmus  to  the  close  of  the  entire  passage  ;  it 
would  be  more  literally  applicable  to  the  majestic  and 
solitary  bird,  than  to  the  majestic  and  solitary  man ; 
whilst  the  figurative  expression  even  more*  impassioned 
might  be  found  for  the  utter  self-absorption  of  Count 
Julian's  spirit  —  too  grandly  sorrowful  to  be  capable 
of  disdain. 

It  completes  the  picture  of  this  ruined  prince,  that 
Hernando,  the  sole  friend  (except  his  daughter)  still 
cleaving  to  him,  dwells  with  yearning  desire  upon  his 
death,  knowing  the  necessity  of  this  consummation  to 
his  own  secret  desires,  knowing  the  forgiveness  which 
would  settle  upon  his  memory  after  that  last  penalty 
should  have  been  paid  for  his  errors,  comprehending 
the  peace  that  would  then  swallow  up  the  storm  :  — 


NOTES-  ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR.  289 

'  For  his  own  sake  I  could  endure  his  loss, 
Pray  for  it,  and  thank  God:  yet  mourn  I  must 
Him  above  all,  so  great,  so  bountiful, 
So  blessed  once  ! ' 

It  is  no  satisfaction  to  Hernando  that  Julian  should 
4  yearn  for  death  with  speechless  love,'  but  Julian  does 
so :  and  it  is  in  vain  now,  amongst  these  irreparable 
ruins,  to  wish  it  otherwise. 

<  Tis  not  my  solace  that  'tis  12  his  desire  : 
Of  all  who  pass  us  in  life's  drear  descent 
"VVe'grieve  the  most  for  those  who  wished  to  die.' 

How  much,  then,  is  in  this  brief  drama  of  Count 
Julian,  chiselled,  as  one  might  think,  by  the  hands  of 
that  sculptor  who  fancied  the  great  idea  of  chiselling 
Mount  Athos  into  a  demigod,  which  almost  insists  on 
being  quoted  ;  which  seems  to  rebuke  and  frown  on 
one  for  not  quoting  it :  passages  to  which,  for  their 
solemn  grandeur,  one  raises  one's  hat  as  at  night  in 
walking  under  the  Coliseum  ;  passages  which,  for  their 
luxury  of  loveliness,  should  be  inscribed  on  .the  phy 
lacteries  of  brides,  or  upon  the  frescoes  of  Ionia,  illus 
trated  by  the  gorgeous  allegories  of  Rubens. 

'  Sed  fugit  interea,  fugit  irreparibile  tempus, 
Singula  dum  capti  circumvectamur  amore.' 

Yet,  reader,  in  spite  of  time,  one  word  more  on  the 
subject  we  are  quitting.  Father  Time  is  certainly  be 
come  very  importunate  and  clamorously  shrill  since  he 
has  been  fitted  up  with  that  horrid  railway  whistle ; 
and  even  old  Mother  Space  is  growing  rather  imperti 
nent,  when  she  speaks  out  of  monthly  journals  licensed 
to  carry  but  small  quantities  of  bulky  goods ;  yet  one 
thing  I  must  say  in  spite  of  .them  both. 
19 


290      NOTES  ON  WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR. 

It  is,  that  although  we  have  had  from  men  of  memo 
rable  genius,  Shelley  in  particular,  both  direct  and 
indirect  attempts  (some  of  them  powerful  attempts) 
to  realize  the  great  idea  of  Prometheus,  which  idea 
is  so  great,  that  (like  the  primeval  majesties  of  Hu 
man  Innocence,  of  Avenging  Deluges  that  are  past, 
of  Fiery  Visitations  yet  to  come)  it  has  had  strength 
to  pass  through  many  climates,  and  through  many 
religions,  without  essential  loss,  but  surviving,  without 
tarnish,  every  furnace  of  chance  and  change;  so  it  is 
that,  after  all  has  been  done  which  intellectual  power 
could  do  since  ^Eschylus  (and  since,  Milton  in  his 
Satan),  no  embodiment  of  the  Promethean  situation, 
none  of  the  Promethean  character,  fixes  the  attentive 
eye  upon  itself  with  the  same  secret  feeling  of  fidelity 
to  the  vast  archetype,  as  Mr.  Landor's  '  Count  Julian.' 
There  is  in  this  modern  aerolith  the  same  jewelly 
lustre,  which  cannot  be  mistaken ;  the  same  4  non 
imitabilefulgurj  and  the  same  character  of 4  fracture,' 
or  cleavage,  as  mineralogists  speak,  for  its  beaming 
iridescent  grandeur,  redoubling  under  the  crush  of 
misery.  The  color  and  the  coruscation  are  the  same 
when  splintered  by  violence  ;  the  tones  of  the  rocky  13 
harp  arc  the  same  when  swept  by  sorrow.  There  is 
the  same  spirit  of  heavenly  persecution  against  his 
enemy,  persecution  that  would  have  hung  upon  his 
rear,  and  '  burn'd  after  him  to  the  bottomless  pit,' 
though  it  had  yawned  for  both  ;  there  is  the  same  gulf 
fixed  between  the  possibilities  of  their  reconciliation, 
the  same  immortality  of  resistance,  the  same  abysmal 
anguish.  Did  Mr.  Landor  consciously  cherish  this 
jEschylcan  ideal  in  composing  '  Count  Julian  ? '  I 
know  not :  there  it  is. 


NOTES. 


NOTE  1.     Page  242. 

'  Southey  affirmed  : '  —  viz.  in  the  '  Letters  of  Espriella,'  an 
imaginary  Spaniard  on  a  visit  to  England,  about  the  year 
1810. 

NOTE  2.     Page  244. 

'  Too  much  wealth  :  '  —  Mr.  Landor,  who  should  know  best, 
speaks  of  himself  (once,  at  least)  as  'poor;'  but  that  is  all 
nonsense.  I  have  known  several  people  with  annual  incomes 
bordering  on  £20,000,  who  spoke  of  themselves,  and  seemed 
seriously  to  think  themselves,  unhappy  '  paupers.'  Lady 
Hester  Stanhope,  with  £2700  a  year,  (of  which  about  twelve 
arose  from  her  government  pension,)  and  without  one  solitary 
dependent  in  her  train,  thought  herself  rich  enough  to  become 
a  queen  (an  Arabic  mateky)  in  the  Syrian  mountains,  but  an 
absolute  pauper  for  London  :  '  for  how,  you  know,'  (as  she 
would  say,  pathetically,)  'could  the  humblest  of  spinsters  live 
decently  upon  that  pittance  ? ' 

NOTE  3.    Page  247. 

'  From  Hegel : '  —  I  am  not  prepared  with  an  affidavit  that 
no  man  ever  read  the  late  Mr.  Hegel,  that  great  master  of 
the  impenetrable.  But  sufficient  evidence  of  that  fact,  as  I 
conceive,  may  be  drawn  from  those  who  have  written  com 
mentaries  upon  him. 


292  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

NOTE  4.     Page  256. 

Wale  (Germanice  ivahl)  the  old  ballad  word  for  choice.  But 
the  motive  for  using  it  in  this  place  is  in  allusion  to  an  excel 
lent  old  Scottish  story  (not  sufficiently  known  in  the  South), 
of  a  rustic  laird,  who  profited  by  the  hospitality  of  his  neigh 
bors,  duly  to  get  drunk  once  (and  no  more)  every  lawful 
night,  returning  in  the  happiest  frame  of  mind  under  the 
escort  of  his  servant  Andrew.  In  spite  of  Andrew,  however, 
it  sometimes  happened  that  the  laird  fell  off  his  horse  ;  and  on 
one  of  these  occasions,  as  he  himself  was  dismounted  from  his 
saddle,  his  wig  was  dismounted  from  his  cranium.  Both  fell 
into  a  peat-moss,  and  both  were  fished  out  by  Andrew.  But 
the  laird,  in  his  confusion,  putting  on  the  wig  wrong  side 
before,  reasonably  'jaloused'  that  this  could  not  be  his  own 
wig,  but  some  other  man's,  which  suspicion  he  communicated 
to  Andrew,  who  argued  contra  by  the  memorable  reply — • 
'  Hout !  laird,  there's  nae  wale  o'  wigs  i'  a  peat-moss.' 

NOTE  5.     Page  257. 

Milton,  in  uttering  his  grief  (but  also  his  hopes  growing 
out  of  this  grief)  upon  a  similar  tragedy,  viz.,  the  massacre 
of  the  Protestant  women  and  children  by  '  the  bloody  Pied- 
montese.' 

NOTE  6.    Page  261. 

'  Modern  military  life : '  —  By  modern  I  mean  since  the 
opening  of  the  thirty  years'  war.  In  this  war,  the  sack,  or 
partial  sack,  of  Magdeburg,  will  occur  to  the  reader  as  one 
of  the  worst  amongst  martial  ruffianisms.  But  this  happens 
to  be  a  hoax.  It  is  an  old  experience,  that,  when  once  the 
demure  muse  of  history  has  allowed  herself  to  tell  a  lie,  she 
never  retracts  it.  Many  are  the  falsehoods  in  our  own  history, 
which  our  children  read  traditionally  for  truths,  merely  because 
our  uncritical  grandfathers  believed  them  to  be  such.  Magde 
burg  was  not  sacked.  What  fault  there  was  in  the  case 
belonged  to  the  King  of  Sweden,  who  certainly  was  remiss  in 
this  instance,  though  with  excuses  more  than  were  hearkened 


NOTES.  293 

i'.  at  that  time.  Tiily,  the  Bavarian  General,  had  no  reason 
for  severity  in  t'.-is  c-».  e,  and  showed  none.  According  to  tlw 
regular  routine  .  ,  Magdeburg  had  become  forfeited  to 

uarv  exc      i  ^i ,    ..-••ich,  let  the  reader  remember,  was  not, 
a  f   ( t  of  the  General  as  against  the  enemy, 
,'uary  warning  to  other  cities,  lest  they  also 
/.e  right  of  a  reasonable  defence,  but  was  a  right 
of  tht,  soldiery  as  against  their  own  leaders.     A  town  stormed 
was  then  a  little  perquisite  to  the  ill-fed  and  ill-paid  soldiers. 
So  of  prisoners.     Jf  I  made  a  prisoner  of  '  Signer  Drew'  [see 
Henry  V.]  it  was  my  business  to  fix  his  ranson  :  the  General 
had  no  business  to  interfere  with  that.    Magdeburg,  therefore, 
had  incurred  the  common  penalty  (which  she  must  have  fore 
seen)  of  obstinacy  ;  and  the  only  difference  between  her  case  and 
that  of  many  another  brave  little  town,  that  quietly  submitted 
'"  »   usual   martyrdom,  without   howling  through   all   the 
-u  '  "--trumpets  of  history,  was  this  —  that  the  penalty  was, 
Altigdeburg,  but  partially  enforced.    Harte,  the  tutor  of 
•rd  rhesterfield's  son,  first  published,  in  his  Life  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  an  anthentic  diary  of  what  passed  at  that  time,  kept 
by  a  Lutheran  clergyman.    This  diary  shows  sufficiently  that 
no  real  departures  were  made  from  the  customary  routine, 
except  in  the  direction  of  mercy.    But  it  is  evident  that  the 
people  of  Magdeburg  were  a  sort  of  German  hogs,  of  whom, 
it  is  notorious,  that  if  you  attempt  in  the  kindest  way  to  shear 
them,  all  you  get  is  horrible  yelling,  and  (the  proverb  asserts) ' 
very  little  wool.     The  case  being  a  classical  on5  in  the  annals 
of  nr'hary  outrages,  I  have  noticed  its  real  features. 

NOTE  7.    Page  264. 

*  Melanchthon  s  profound  theory.'1 — That  the  reader  may  not 
suppose  me  misrepresenting  Mr.  L.,  I  subjoin  his  words,  p. 
224,  vol.  1: — 'The  evil  of  idolatry  is  this  —  rival  nations 
have  raised  up  rival  deities  ;  war  hath  been  denounced  in  the 
name  of  heaven ;  men  have  been  murdered  for  the  love  of 
f.od;  and  such  impiety  hath  darkened  all  the  regions  of  the 
uorM,  that  the  Lord  of  all  things  hath  been  mocked  by  all 
simultaneously  as  the  Lord  of  Hosts.'  The  evil  or  idolatry  is, 


294 


NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 


not  that  it  disfigures  the  Deity,  (in  which,  it  seems,  there 
might  be  no  great  harm,)  but  that  one  man's  disfiguration 
differs  from  another  man's ;  which  leads  to  quarrelling,  and 
that  to  fighting.' 

NOTE  8.     Page  265. 

'Grecian  disguise  : '  —  The  true  German  name  of  this  learned 
reformer  was  Schwarzerd  (black  earth)  ;  but  the  homeliness 
and  pun-provoking  quality  of  such  a  designation  induced 
Melanchthon  to  masque  it  in  Greek.  By  the  way,  I  do  not 
understand  how  Mr.  Landor,  the  arch-purist  in  orthography, 
reconciles  his  spelling  of  the  name  to  Greek  orthodoxy  :  there 
is  no  Greek  word  that  could  be  expressed  by  the  English 
syllable  '  cthon/  Such  a  word  as  Melancthon  *  would  be  a 
hybrid  monster  —  neither  fish,  flesh,  nor  good  red  herring. 

NOTE  9.    Page  268. 

An  equal  mistake  it  is  in  Mr  Landor  to  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Porson  any  vituperation  of  Mathias  as  one  that  had  uttered 
opinions  upon  Wordsworth.  In  the  Pursuits  of  Literature, 
down  to  the  fifteenth  edition,  there  is  no  mention  of  Words 
worth's  name.  Southey  is  mentioned  slightingly,  and  chiefly 
with  reference  to  his  then  democratic  principles ;  but  not 
Coleridge,  and  not  Wordsworth.  Mathias  soon  after  went  to 
Italy,  where  he  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  —  died,  I 
believe,  and  was  buried  —  never,  perhaps,  having  heard  the 
name  of  Wordsworth  As  to  Porson,  it  is  very  true  that 
Mathias  took  a  few  liberties  with  his  private  habits,  such  as 
his  writing  paragraphs  in  the  little  cabinet  fitted  up  for  the 
gens  de  plume  at  the  Morning  Chronicle  Office,  and  other  trifles. 
But  these,  though  impertinences,  were  not  of  a  nature  seriously 
to  offend.  They  rather  flattered,  by  the  interest  which  they 
argued  in  his  movements.  And  with  regard  to  Person's  main 
pretension,  his  exquisite  skill  in  Greek,  Mathias  was  not  the 


*  The  reader  of  this  edition  will  notice  that  the  American  printer  has 
altered  the  spelling  in  the  text,  without  reference  to  Mr.  De  Quinccy's  remarks 
on  Mr.  Landor's  method. 


*  >     KOTES' 

man  to  admire  this  too  little  :  his  weakness,  i/  W  MJf!  point  he 
had  a  weakness,  lay  in  the  opposite  direction.  His  own  Greek 
was  not  a  burthen  that  could  have  foundered  a  camel :  he  was 
neither  accurate,  nor  extensive,  nor  profound.  But  yet  Mr. 
Landor  is  wrong  in  thinking  that  he  drew  it  from  an  Index. 
In  his  Italian,  he  had  the  advantage  probably  of  Mr.  Landor 
himself:  at  least,  he  wrote  it  with  more  apparent  fluency  and 
compass. 

NOTE  10.    Page  279. 

Herod  the  Great,  and  his  father  Antipater,  owed  the  favor 
of  Rome,  and,  finally,  the  throne  of  Judaea,  to  the  seasonable 
election  which  they  made  between  Rome  and  Persia ;  but 
made  not  without  some  doubts,  as  between  forces  hardly  yet 
brought  to  a  satisfactory  equation. 

NOTE  11.     Page  282. 

'  Stooped  not  to  accept  it?  —  The  notion  that  Julius  Caesar,  who 
of  all  men  must  have  held  cheapest  the  title  of  Rex,  had 
seriously  intrigued  to  obtain  it,  arose  (as  I  conceive)  from  two 
mistakes  —  first,  From  a  misinterpretation  of  a  figurative 
ceremony  in  the  pageant  of  the  Lupercalia.  The  Romans 
were  ridiculously  punctilious  in  this  kind  of  jealousy.  They 
charged  Pompey  at  one  time  with  a  plot  for  making  himself 
king,  because  he  wore  white  bandages  round  his  thighs;  now 
white,  in  olden  days,  was  as  much  the  regal  color  as  purple. 
Think,  dear  reader,  of  us  —  of  you  and  me  —  being  charged 
with  making  ourselves  kings,  because  we  may  choose  to  wear 
white  cotton  drawers.  Pompey  was  very  angry,  and  swore 
bloody  oaths  that  it  was  not  ambition  which  had  cased  his 
thighs  in  white  fascia.  '  Why,  what  is  it  then  ? '  said  a 
grave  citizen.  'What  is  it,  man?'  replied  Pompey,  'it 
is  rheumatism.'  Dogberry  must  have  had  a  hand  in  this 
charge  :  —  '  Dost  thou  hear,  thou  varlet  ?  Thou  are  charged 
with  incivism ;  and  it  shall  go  hard  with  me  but  I  will  prove 
thec  to  thy  face  a  false  knave,  and  guilty  of  flat  rheumatism.1 
The  other  reason  which  has  tended  to  confirm  posterity  in 
the  belief  that  Caesar  really  coveted  the  title  of  Rex,  was  the 


296  NOTES    ON    WALTER    SAVAGE    LANDOR. 

confusion  of  the  truth  arising  with  Greek  writers.  Basileus, 
the  term  by  which  indifferently  they  designated  the  mighty 
Artaxerxes  and  the  pettiest  reguhts,  was  the  original  trans 
lation  used  for  Imperator.  Subsequently,  and  especially  after 
Dioclesian  had  approximated  the  aulic  pomps  to  Eastern 
models,  the  terms  Autocrator,  Kaisar,  Augustus,  Sebastos,  &c., 
came  more  into  use.  But  after  Trajan's  time,  or  even  to  that 
of  Commodus,  generally  the  same  terms  which  expressed 
Imperator  and  Imperitorial  [viz.  Basihus  and  Basilikos]  to  a 
Grecian  ear  expressed  Rex  and  Regalis. 

NOTE  12.    Page  289. 

f'Tis'  : —  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen  (for  a  reason  which  it 
maybe  elsewhere  worth  while  explaining)  make  the  same  mis 
take  of  supposing  'tis  and  'twas  admissible  in  prose  :  which  is 
shocking  to  an  English  ear,  for  since  1740  they  have  become 
essentially  poetic  forms,  and  cannot,  without  a  sense  of  pain 
ful  affectation  and  sentimentality,  be  used  in  conversation  or 
in  any  mode  of  prose.  Mr.  Landor  does  not  make  that  mistake, 
but  the  reduplication  of  the  'tis  in  this  line,  —  will  he  permit  me 
to  say?  —  is  dreadful.  He  is  wide  awake  to  such  blemishes  in 
other  men  of  all  nations  :  so  arn  I.  He  blazes  away  all  day 
long  against  the  trespasses  of  that  class,  like  a  man  in  spring 
protecting  corn-fields  against  birds.  So  do  I  at  times.  And 
if  ever  I  publish  that  work  on  Style,  which  for  years  has  been 
in  preparation,  I  fear  that,  from  Mr.  Landor,  it  will  be  neces 
sary  to  cull  some  striking  flaws  in  composition,  were  it  only 
that  in  his  works  must  be  sought  some  of  its  most  striking 
brilliancies. 

NOTE  13.     Page  290. 

'  Rocky  harp  : '  —  There  are  now  known  other  cases,  beside 
the  ancient  one  of  Memnon's  statue,  in  which  the  'deep- 
grooved  '  granites,  or  even  the  shifting  sands  of  wildernesses, 
utter  mysterious  music  to  ears  that  watch  and  wait  for  the 
proper  combination  of  circumstances. 


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